When the Darkness Will Not Lift

I earnestly believe that one of the primary reasons that God brought Steve and I together in marriage was because we are both emotive people.  Whether we like it or not, feelings are an integral part of our personalities and many times we act or neglect to act based on these feelings.  While we want to feel good and happy all of the time (and I will say that marriage has done much for us in that respect), we are both prone to battle with bouts of melancholy and depression.  Each of us went through a particularly dark period during our high school years.  For me, the weight of 2.5 years of a depressing cloud was completely overwhelming and seemingly endless.  Now I can see that this experience helps me to understand Steve and that his experiences "in the miry bog" help him to sensitively understand me.  

Interestingly, encountering believers dealing with depression is something that pops up rather frequently amongst our little circle of family and friends.  As a been-there-done-that gal, I'm always eager to gain insight as to how to help others who experience depression as well as how to help others understand what serious down-in-the-dumps can be like (particularly if they are of the naturally sanguine disposition).  Therefore, I was happy this week to read John Piper's little book When the Darkness Will Not Lift.

The Book was Quick and Easy
I really appreciated the short, concise treatment by Piper on the spiritual aspects of depression.  While acknowledging that depression is very much a real thing (major props here...there's nothing as detrimental to a depressed person than for someone to tell him or her that depression doesn't exist or that it is only a spiritual problem), Piper touches on possible physical influences, the role of medication, the vital importance of not confusing justification with sanctification, and some foundational truths to remember when bogged down in the darkness.  Piper incorporates thoughts from well-known theologians and preachers throughout the centuries (Richard Baxter and Martin Lloyd-Jones, for example) to provide a balanced perspective.  At just seventy-three pages, the littleness of this book makes it a more inviting read for those whose just don't feel like handling much more.

The Tone was Gentle yet Convicting
Throughout the book, Piper maintains that depression and the pain associated with it are realities.  Rarely are his suggestions for gaining hope in the fight for joy stated in such as way as to pile guilt onto the depressed individual.  While keeping a gentle tone, Piper is not lax in firmly stating spiritual truth and pointing out areas of possible sin.  I was convicted in reading this passage:

Sometimes the darkness of our souls is owing in part to the fact that we have drifted into patterns of life that are not blatantly sinful but are constricted and uncaring.... We find ourselves not energized for any great cause, but always thinking about the way to maximize our leisure and escape pressure....God has made us to flourish by being spent for others.  Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).  Most of us don't choose against this life of outpouring; we drift away from it.

(Eesh.  So true.  That went right along with my thoughts on servanthood verses martyrdom a few weeks ago.)

The Advice was Helpful
The final chapter mentions a few things that those who are not naturally inclined toward depression can do to be supportive for those who are faced with darkness.  Suggestions such as not giving up on a depressed person, continuing to lovingly share truth, and providing supportive friendship all require a hearty Amen!  A brief recounting of how John Newton's persistent yet humble influence on the suicidal William Cowper is both inspirational and encouraging. 

I do think that much of the premise of When the Darkness Will Not Lift is based on Piper's other books, such as Desiring God and When I Don't Desire God.  Some of the impact of When the Darkness Will Not Lift may be lost without reading those other titles, but

In summation...
It was a profitable read and I would recommend it to those who battle with depression, as well as those who love them.

(You can purchase a copy of When the Darkness Will Not Lift here.  I actually downloaded the PDF copy to my computer and read it for free.)

Contra Cussing

As I lie in bed this morning, I think about Christians and cussing.
I work in a factory. My job is to move boxes of finished product with forklifts and conveyors and a lot of lifting and throwing, 12 hours a day, four days on, four days off. Anyone who has worked in a production environment knows that nearly all of the men and many of the women working in these places use very coarse language on a very regular basis. Though I’ve only had a year and a half of experience in production settings, it still is interesting that, out of at least a couple hundred, I can distinctly remember only one co-worker who did not cuss.
The frightening thing, which rouses me at 7:40am on my Saturday, is that many of these men and women claim to be Christians, talk about their churches, and express respect and love for the God of the Bible. Some of them pray and read their Bibles, go to church, listen to preachers from Texas and California on the radio, listen to presentations from missionaries, and run the sound board and slide projector at church. Some are younger than I am, while others have grandchildren. Yet, when a machine goes down, or a boss announces mandatory overtime, or some really big difficulties are going on at home, they talk exactly like the people who make no claim to Christ.
This is wrong. The proliferation of this language leads me to the conclusion that many Christians think it is right and acceptable to cuss or joke coarsely. Perhaps they think it is wrong, but not bad enough to worry about changing. I would like to prove that foul language is one of the key signs of spiritual immaturity by asking some questions and seeking answers from the Scriptures.

1. What are words?
2. What are bad words?
3. Doesn’t Paul cuss?
4. Wasn’t Jesus “one of the guys”, joking and talking like a normal person?
5. What is the difference between using strong and provocative language and cussing?
6. When can I cuss?

(1) What are words?
I do not have a degree in philosophy so I will try to give a basic, from-the-hip answer, based on the Bible.
God wrote the Bible. In that fact, we can see that written communication is good, that words written at one point in time can be brought into a later time and still retain their original meaning, and that an objective text of words from God is as authoritative as a personal, audible conversation with him.
Words are vessels to carry ideas. God spoke the words “Let there be light” and there was light. His desire, authority, and ability to create were expressed in those words, and the ideal creation in his mind became a physical reality. Only God’s words carry this authority, because he gives no one else the authority to create ex nihilo. God inspired men (Moses, in the case of Genesis 1) to write the Scriptures, revealing himself in perfectly chosen words through their pens.
Humans are then held responsible for taking God at his word, believing the fact that he created the world by the word of his power (Romans 1:18-20, 25; Hebrews 11:3; Second Peter 3:5-7). We can see that, as creation took place at God’s word and man is held responsible by his words, that God’s words convey truth about him accurately and carry his authority.
This is reinforced when Jesus is called the Word in John 1. He is presented as the perfect expression of the mind and character of God. This fact is important in understanding cussing: Words are meant to convey truth about God. God revealed himself to men by the words of the Bible. Those words are repeated to men throughout the whole world in the preached word of evangelism (Romans 10:14-17), which includes teaching, authoring, and translation ministries. Those men relate with God on the basis of their response to the words God has spoken. Every man will be judged by his words (Matt 12:37), and only those who by faith in Jesus Christ know God will be saved from his wrath.

(2) What Are Bad Words?
So, words are meant to convey truth, but, since the fall of Satan (which apparently began with words in his heart, cf. Isa 14:12f) not all words do convey truth. A bad word is a word that does not reveal or repeat truth from God.
The Bible shows that careless words (Matt 12:36f), lying (Eph 4:25), slander and clamor (Eph 4:31), worthless debates (1 Tim 1:6f), cursing (James 3:9f), empty words (Eph 5:6), wrong doctrine (Eph 4:14f), foolish talk (Eph 5:4), harsh words (Pro 15:1), murmuring (Deut 1:26, 27, & 35), blaspheming (Matt 12:31f), coarse jesting and sexually immoral speech (Eph 5:3f), and various other uses of language are bad. Conversely, preaching the gospel (Matt 28:19f), warning men of God’s coming wrath (2 Cor 5:11, Rev 14:6-12), proclaiming the cross of Christ (1 Cor 1:21-24), and condemning sin (Rev 14:8f) are all examples of good words. The issue is not the words themselves, but the heart that makes use of them.
Good words can be used as bad words, at least some times. For example the word stupid is used in Proverbs 30:2. This was inspired by the Spirit, and was obviously good. However, when I was a child and I called my brother Peter stupid, I was using a bad word. Even the best words can be used badly; a person can even use the preaching of the gospel in a sinful way. In Philippians 1:15, Paul describes evil teachers who preach the gospel “from envy and rivalry,” making their use of those good words a bad use. Paul praised God that the gospel was preached, even for false motives (Phil 1:18), but those false teachers will still be judged for the badness of their hearts in their use of words.
Now one of two interesting questions arises: If a good word can be used as a bad one, can a bad word be used as a good one? Or, Doesn’t Paul cuss?

(3) Doesn’t Paul Cuss?
In Philippians 3:8, Paul uses a Greek word which is translated into English by something like rubbish, dung, poop, crap, or even worse words. How could Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit use a bad word?
The answer is that Paul used a bad word for a bad idea. This word was the right one to convey the truth. God saved Paul, not only from nasty sins like alcoholism or pornography, but still more from the false pride of self-righteousness. Paul shows that all the “good” things that “good” people do are a bucket of feces and an offense to God. He counts them as poop “in order to gain Christ.” This was a good use of a bad word.
So, maybe we Christians should recognize that really bad words can be used to talk about really bad things, particularly when these things are being accepted by Christians. Perhaps it is time we treated with false Christianity and man-made holiness in Paul’s abrupt fashion, exposing the darkness of sin to an all-too comfortable world (Eph 5:11-13).
If this was what I heard Christians doing when they used cuss words, if they were pouring out their hearts to God in agony over their sinful pride or exposing the evil of hypocrisy, it would not be a cause for worry, but for rejoicing. The difference between what Paul was doing and the foul language that evidences spiritual immaturity is that Paul had an exact, redemptive purpose in using those strong words, while very little of the cussing which I hear from professing Christians has any purpose.
So, Paul hardly gives us an OK for using careless strong language. While we should be careful not to criticize a brother in Christ who is attempting to use bad words for bad ideas, we cannot accept the cavalier attitude of professing Christians who use language foolishly.
Another common idea is that we need to dress, joke, and talk like the world in order to be “incarnational” Christians, i.e., to be like Jesus and meet people where they are.

(4) Wasn’t Jesus “one of the guys”, telling jokes and talking like a normal person? Isn’t that why he became a man?
No. I know that it is popular to say things like, “Jesus was so likeable, everyone wanted to be around him. Even the hookers wanted a piece of him.” That is wrong. You might call it scubalon.
Jesus was not normal. He was despised and rejected by men (Isa 53:3). He was perfectly holy. Yes, he was a real man and felt hunger and pain and temptation, but he never sinned, and never could have sinned. He was wholly God and his will was entirely in tune at every moment of his life with the Father’s will. Never did he give a hint of wrong-doing to those who were with him.
Jesus did not accept sin, he died for it (this is one reason I find John 8:11 very questionable). He couldn’t have accepted sinners unless he died for them (Rom 3:24-26). Certainly he associated with prostitutes and tax collectors, but not to make them better prostitutes and richer tax collectors, but to save them from their sins. When he healed or forgave someone, he commanded “sin no more” (John 5:14). His message was, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). To put it briefly, Jesus was surrounded by repentant prostitutes and other believing, repentant sinners. An unrepentant man or woman would not be able to stand being in his company, because he did not ever give in to sin. When the Pharisees berated him for eating with sinners, Jesus didn’t say, “Shut up, these are my friends,” or, “They’re not so bad,” or, “Don’t you judge them,” but rather “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). He was calling these sinners out of their sin to holiness (cf. Rom 8:30; 1 Thess 4:7; 2 Tim 1:9; 1 Pet 1:15; 2:9; 2 Pet 1:3f, 10). How does this serve as a stamp of approval on unholy speech, coarse joking, cussing, and worldliness?
The Triune God has clearly called us to holiness. He has not only freed us from the law of Moses, but also from the law of sin and death (Gal 5:13ff; Romans 8:1-8, cf. 7:21-23). The fruit of the Spirit are clearly incompatible with throwaway language, rife with mediocrity and foulness. Consider a few four letter words. How do they demonstrate love? Joy? Peace? Patience? When has anyone needed to drop an f-bomb to show kindness? How has it shown goodness? Faithfulness? Gentleness? And most potently, I have never once known someone who frequently cussed to show any self-control in their language. They might have a type of control that pretends to be more holy at church than they are in their heart, but such hypocrisy is a far cry from the control wrought by the Spirit of holiness. He that has Spirit-given control does not toss around strong language needlessly.

(5) What is the difference between using strong and provocative language and cussing?
So, seeing Paul’s example of language next to the great clamor for holiness found throughout the word of God, we come to an important conclusion: There is a difference between intentionally using strong language (including bad words) for a purpose, and using strong or coarse words meaninglessly and mindlessly (i.e., cussing). The difference is in the mind and heart. Using strong language like Paul, the prophets, and Luther did is right and occasionally necessary. Cussing is never right. This is because at its core, cussing is simply the overflow of a dirty heart, which is left unchecked by a lazy mind.
The holy, wise man will engage his mind in the pursuit of good and wise ways of conducting every area of life (Prov 1-4). God’s Word particularly emphasizes the place of words in showing our heart (Matt 12:33f). It is clear that God has placed considerable weight on the words we use. It is also clear that we will be held accountable for those words, and we cannot say “I think, I must speak,” as if that excuses our carelessness (cp. Matt 12:36f). We are expected to engage our minds before we open our mouths, control our tongues, and glorify God in our every word and motive. Of course, this is only possible through the enabling of the Spirit, for “no man can tame the tongue” (James 3:8). No man, but God can, Jesus did, and the Spirit will help us to do so.
No living Christian is done growing in this area, since God has chosen to gradually and progressively change us into his image throughout our lives. He is constantly making us holier, if we are Christians; conversely, if he is not making us holier at all, we have no reason to think that we are Christians. That is why holiness is vital to a Christian’s assurance of salvation (John 15:1-11; Heb 12:5-8; 2 Pet 1:8-10; 1 John 2:3-6). So, if you struggle with taming your tongue, know that this is one sin that every single Christian has struggled with (James 3!), that you can rest in the fact that God is the one who promises to make you holy (Jude 24), that he can and will cleanse your dirty heart (Isa 30:21f; Jer 17:9f; 31:33f; Eze 36:22ff; John 4:13-15; 2 Cor 3:7-18; 1 John 1:7). Bad language is indeed a sign of spiritual immaturity, but the Christian who is challenged by the Scriptures may be confident that the Holy Spirit will enable him become a mature believer. As he grows, he will look forward to that day when he will be totally freed from the snares of sin, and can “Go, and sin no more.”

(6) When Can I Cuss?
Never.
Inasmuch as cussing means throwing away words by vulgar, worthless talking, you should never, ever cuss. The Christian’s goal should be to always have a godly purpose for every word he says. His goal in every use of language is to build the temple of God. He may be seeking the conviction of sin with a nonbeliever, even in mundane conversations. It amazes nonbelievers when you demonstrate how watching TV or learning to cook can be done to the glory of God. A Christian might be encouraging a fellow-believer and building him up (Ephesians and James), or he might be simply expressing praise to God by enjoying out loud his love, grace, wrath, or other attributes.
Christians ought to exemplify the fruit of the Spirit in their words. They should actively or passively worship God in their every utterance. They should use the enormous flexibility and creative supply of their heart language and any additional languages they have been blessed with learning to show the holy Lamb of God to the world. This leaves no room for cussing, and no reason to desire it.

Looking up

he long, long day gets longer.  Fear crowds out rationality, conversations are tinged with misunderstandings, and mud covers everything.

So tired and so weepy and so run down. Then...a glance up at the sparkling starry sky.

 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?  He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing. Isaiah 40:26

Because he is strong in power, not one of the millions of stars is missing.

And no Amelia is missing.  No Baby is missing.  No Steve is missing.  No family on road trip or heathens at home are missing.

No one in Haiti or Chile is missing.  No missionaries struggling to reach people with the gospel are missing.  No decisions and no past, present, or future are missing.

It's all by the greatness of his might.

Grace that is greater than all of me

Spiritual dehydration seems to have eeked its way into our home.  Sure, I'm consistent in daily devotions, we pray and read Scripture together in the evenings, and there is usually at least one spiritually-related lecture ringing through the computer speakers during the day.  But the desire to do these things is just so not there.  I feel like a raisin, unable to truly delight in my absorption of the Word of God.  A panicked raisin.

 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."

I know that God's grace is sufficient for my justification and I rest in that.  Why isn't it the same for my sanctification?  Why do I think that my zeal or lack of it will determine being made holy as he is holy?  Even when I preach to myself the truth that "he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion," it's easy to think that he's going to squeeze it all in at the last minute.  Phew, she made it. 

For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

I found a copy of Bryan Chappell's Holiness by Grace on our new little living room bookshelf.  We received it when we visited Covenant Seminary a few months ago, but it has never been read.  A glance at the introduction revealed that this is the book that I need to read right now.  Chappell points out that believers cherish the truth that God sees Christ's righteousness instead of our sinfulness when we are saved.  But what robs believers of joy after that point is the "misunderstanding of how God continues to view us after we have received the grace that justifies us." 

What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn?  Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

There is nothing but Christ: he is everything in justification and everything in sanctification.  None of my enthusiasm, efforts in ministry, or diligence in spiritual disciplines makes any difference whatsoever.  There is nothing but Christ alone.  Oh, that my heart and mind would grasp this.  But what about holiness and obedience?  Those fruits of grace are commanded just as often as the grace of God is extolled.  How do I pursue a desire for holiness without falling into achieving it through my own efforts?  Chappell says: "Resting on God's grace does not relieve us of our holy obligations; rather it should enable us to fulfill them.  As the assurance of God's love allows us to cease striving to please him for our own benefit, our good works will begin reflecting more of the selfless righteousness that is truly holy."

...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

God's grace is greater than my sin.  And it is far greater than me and my ideas of what a good Christian girl acts and thinks like.  May he continue to impress this on my heart in his lovingly persistent way.

Receiving and Believing

Explaining the gospel has always been a struggle for me, especially as I have taught at various and sundry after-school Bible clubs, Good News Clubs, VBS and 5-Day Clubs, and so on.  Somehow, I want to understand the truths of the gospel message so clearly that I can translate them to kids in a way that they will be able to grasp.  Of course, I know that it is the work of the Spirit in their hearts that will awaken them to their sin and need for salvation.  At the same time, I do not want to be slack in any way and just give the "pat answers" so that I can feel better.  As Steve and I have delved further into Calvinism and I begin to see how this system helps me organize and understand the gospel truths that I already know, explanations to kids have been easier and I feel like I am actually sharing the truth...and not some nebulous concept.

But, I still get hung up on the whole believe/receive thing.  What exactly is that?  I know that believing is ultimately trusting someone, and in this case, trusting that Christ is the Son of God and that his sacrifice on the cross is sufficient in atoning for my sin.  But receiving?  So many times, the line is "Just receive Jesus as your Savior," or "I received Jesus when I was eight," or something like that.  How do you really understand what that is?  How do you explain that to somebody else?

I was listening to a really great sermon by Piper last night and he helped me:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes . . .” Four observations about this believing. 
First, it means that not everybody will benefit from what Jesus came to do. But “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The rest will perish—and not have eternal life. 
Second, the word itself means to embrace something as true; and when it’s a person, it means to trust them to be what they are and do what they say. 
Third, John 1:11-12 shows that another word John has in mind to explain believeis receive. “[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” So receiving Jesus and believing Jesus explain each other.

Fourth, if we ask, “Receive him as what?” the answer would be, “Receive him as what he is.” For example, in John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” So here believing means coming to Jesus and receiving him as the food and drink that satisfies our souls. That’s one of the reasons I talk about receiving him as our Treasure (Matthew 13:44). And this is why faith is so transforming.

Aha!  Something tangible.  Something explainable. 

Piper on C.S. Lewis

If you haven't listened to Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul yet, you should carve out about an hour from your day and do it.  As a die-hard C.S. Lewis fan, I was amazed and encouraged by Piper's masterful treatment of the life and spiritual experience of Lewis.  

One part of the message particularly struck me and that was "the perils of introspection."  It's a long quote, but I think it's worth reading.

"Lewis’s experience in the pursuit of Joy and the mistakes hemade has had a huge effect on the way I think about the assurance of salvation in relationship to introspection and self-examination. What he discovered is that the effort to know the experience of Joy by looking at Joy is self-defeating. He wrote, “I saw that all my waitings and watchings for Joy, all my vain hopes to find some mental content on which I could, so to speak, lay my finger and say, ‘This is it,’ had been a futile attempt contemplate the enjoyed.” ⁴¹ It can’t be done, for the moment we step outside ourselves to contemplate our enjoying, we are no longer enjoying, but contemplating. The implication of this for knowing that we are believing God by trying to look at our believing is enormous. 

This is our dilemma . . . as thinkers we are cut off from what we think about; as tasting, touching, willing, loving, hating, we do not clearly understand. The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter into reality, the less we can think. You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyze the nature of humor while roaring with laughter. But when else can you really know these things? ⁴²

You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment; for in hope we look to hope’s object and we interrupt this by (so to speak) turning around to look at the hope itself. . . . Introspection is in one respect misleading. In introspection we try to look inside ourselves and see what is going on. But nearly everything that was going on a moment before is stopped by the very act of our turning to look at it. Unfortunately this does not mean that introspection finds nothing. On the contrary, it finds precisely what is left behind by the suspension of all our normal activities; and what is left behind is mainly mental images and physical sensations. The great error is to mistake this mere sediment or track or by product for the activities themselves. ⁴³

What this has meant for me is, first, that I see now that the pursuit of Joy must always be indirect—focusing not on the experience but the object to be enjoyed. And, second, I see that faith in Jesus, in its most authentic experience is suspended when it is being analyzed to see if its real. Which means this analysis always ends in discouragement. When we are trusting Christ most authentically, we are not thinking about trusting, but about Christ. When we step out of the moment to examine it, we cease what we were doing, and therefore cannot see it. My counsel for strugglers therefore is relentlessly: Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus in his word. And pray for eyes to see."

 Bam.  Here was something that applied so thoroughly to me, especially lately.  How often do I spend more time thinking about if I'm loving Steve enough and in the right way and if I'm being a good wife and what makes a good wife than focusing on Steve or just on living my life?  How often do I evaluate how I feel about doing the dishes and the laundry and convincing myself not to feel bad about it instead of just doing the chores?  And even more importantly, how many times do I declare my spiritual life a failure because I insist on focusing on how I'm doing spiritually instead of looking to Jesus?

Convicting?  Yes.  Encouraging?  Definitely.

Knowing God

I have been reading sections of Psalm 119 this past week and have been amazed by how frequently the psalmist asks God to give him a desire for His word, to show Himself, to give him understanding, etc. The psalmist is not approaching the Lord and His word with a conjured up spirituality, as if he has to be emotionally prepped. He is earnestly dependent on the Lord for even the desire to love His precepts. This was convicting to me. How often do I deem it necessary in my prideful flesh to be "ready" for God...to be mentally psyched to "meditate"? And when it doesn't feel like it's "working," I get frustrated and depressed. In reality, the desire to know God and love His word is just as much a gift of His grace aseverything else in my life. Reading through Romans, especially chapters 9-11, have brought home again the doctrine of election and the reminder that there is nothing that I have done to deserve or accomplish any means of grace. It is all a gracious gift from a loving God...for His purpose and to His glory.

Then I read this interesting quote from Packer's Knowing God:

We are, perhaps, orthodox evangelicals. We can state the gospel clearly, and can smell unsound doctrine a mile away. If anyone asks us how men may know God, we can at once produce the right formulae - that we come to know God through Jesus Christ the Lord, in virtue of His cross and mediation, on the basis of His word of promise, by the power of the Holy Spirit, via a personal exercise of faith. Yet, the gaiety, goodness, and unfettered spirit which are the marks of those who have known God are rare among us - rarer, perhaps, than they are in some other Christian circles where, by comparison, evangelical truth is less clearly and fully known.

How true! We can become so wrapped up in facts and methods and routines that the true delight of knowing God is diminished. True, we do need the disciplines of daily study in the Word and time in prayer, but these are the means to an end - it's about knowing God, not just saying that I haven't missed a day of Bible reading in a month. Dependence on God for the knowledge of Him and the desire to know and enjoy Him will hopefully do away with the, as Packer says, "dried-up stoicism" of being a Good Christian Girl, and will replace it with "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8).

Like the psalmist, I'm praying for this in my own life and in the lives of others.