Held close to his heart…
Isaiah 40
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance?
- He measures the waters in the hollow of His hand.
- He marks off the heavens with the breadth of His hand.
- Holds the dust of the earth in a basket, weighs the mountains, the nations are like dust compared to Him.
- He is enthroned above the earth, people are like grasshoppers compared to Him.
- He stretches out the heavens and spreads them like a tent to live in.
- He brings princes to naught. He raises them up and He can bring them down.
- Created all the stars and calls them each by name. By His power they remain where they are.
- He is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth!
- He gives strength to the weary, renews the strength of those who hope in Him. (Always a great verse to read working at camp when you are worn out, exhausted, and don’t think that you can carry on another step!)
Reading this list, my thoughts traveled back to Psalm 8:3-4 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
- He is enthroned above the earth, people are like grasshoppers compared to Him.
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.”
- He brings princes to naught. He raises them up and He can bring them down.
“Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales… He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.”
- Created all the stars and calls them each by name. By His power they remain where they are.
If God can use a flea…
It is good to be home again. The end of the summer certainly felt like the “breaking of the Fellowship” or when the Pevensies left Narnia at the end of Prince Caspian. The last day of camp was definitely a sad day. This summer’s adventure was an amazing chapter of my life and in one way I am sorry that it is over (for this year at least!), yet at the same time I am excited about all the adventures waiting just down the road this fall! And of course, it is good to be back with my amazing family again – I missed them so much this summer!
“Fleas!” I (Corrie) cried. “Betsie, the place is swarming with them!” We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle, and edged our way to a patch of light. “Here! And here another one!” I wailed. “Betsie, how can we live in such a place!”
“Show us. Show us how.” It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie. “Corrie!” she said excitedly. “He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!”
I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. “It was in First Thessalonians,” I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light I turned the pages. “Here it is: ‘Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seeks to do good to one another and to all…'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.
“Go on,” said Betsie. “That wasn’t all.”
“Oh yes: ‘… to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.”
“That’s it, Corrie. That’s His answer. ‘Give thanks in all circumstances!’ That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!”
I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul-aired room. “Such as?” I said.
“Such as being assigned here together.”
I bit my lip. “Oh yes, Lord Jesus!”
“Such as what you’re holding in your hands.”
I looked down at the Bible. “Yes! Thank you dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank you for all the women, here in this room, who will meet you in these pages.”
“Yes,” said Betsie. “Thank you for the very crowding here. Since we’re packed so close, that many more will hear!” She looked at me expectantly. “Corrie!” she prodded.
“Oh all right. Thank you for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds.”
“Thank you,” Betsie went on serenely, “for the fleas and for – – – “
The fleas! This was too much. “Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”
“Give thanks in all circumstances.” she quoted. “It doesn’t say, in pleasant circumstances. Fleas are a part of this place where God has put us.”
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for the fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.”
Then one day:
“Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling. “You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself.” I told her.
“You know we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,” she said. “Well, I’ve found out.” That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it. “But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?” Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice “Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, ‘That place is crawling with fleas!'”
My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”
Because of the fleas, Betsie and her sister were able to share God’s Word with so many people! It was amazing. God used the fleas to further the spread of His word, that His light might shine in the darkness of the concentration camp. Reading this really convicted me. My first thought was: How in the world did I miss this for all these years of my life? Of course I had memorized verses which say to give thanks in everything, and to do everything without complaining, so I knew it all, but yet it had never really sunk in. You see, once we realize that God has a plan and a purpose in everything (there are no accidents in God’s kingdom), it is wonderfully freeing! Knowing that God is in control and that everything happens for a reason is amazing.
I Thessalonians 5: 16-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.“
Philippians 2:14 “Do everything without complaining or arguing,“
Although I knew these verses, it wasn’t really until this summer as I was sitting there on my bunk that it really hit home. When we know that God has His mighty plan at work in everything, than we can give thanks to Him in everything. As Christians, complaining is no longer an option. Give thanks in everything – even when things seem to be going terribly wrong, even when nothing is working right, when the world seems to be spinning backwards and upside down, give thanks to God. Do not complain! Give thanks, not just in the good times or for the good things, but give thanks for the difficult things as well. We have no way of knowing what God will do with the difficult things in our lives, how He will use them to further His kingdom, to grow us, to draw us to Him, to bring Him glory. This is such a hard thing to learn, but it is so wonderful!
I mean, if God can use a flea to accomplish His great purposes… surely He can use anything and turn anything to good. Think of the story of Joseph in Genesis – sold as a slave by his brothers, yet placed in position by God in the right place at the right time to save so many lives!
“Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years no there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.” (Genesis 45:4-8)
At the start of this summer I wrote down a quote from Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan: “Complaints go up, not down.” I figured that I would use this to remind me not to complain this summer. For example, if I felt like complaining, I would talk to God about it only and not those around me. But while this was good and kept me from complaining, I had not yet taken the next step: actually giving thanks to God in everything. So, now of course, I am still working on it. If something is not going the way I think it should be, my first tendency is still to grumble rather than praise God. Thankfully, God is stronger than my weakness!
Another thing that really stood out to me this summer is that there are no accidents in God’s kingdom. Of course I always knew this in the back of my head, but it was simply a “sunday school answer,” it had not yet become real to me – not until this summer. I’m not even sure if I can explain it, but just time after time seeing how perfectly God works things out was amazing. And the tiniest little things that could so often are just written off as coincidences” are not coincidences in the kingdom of God. Several times this summer, I heard about children dealing with difficult issues just “happening” to be in certain counselor’s cabins who have also dealt with those same issues. Or, once when I just “happened” to walk into a room and “happened” to start talking to someone who it turned out, was in need of some encouragement and prayer. Or several times, when I picked something to talk about in devo’s with the staffers in my cabin, and then found out after the devo that God had laid that same subject upon their hearts as well! There were so many more times and different instances. It was so amazing to realize that there are no accidents in the kingdom of God. Again, it was something I knew, but had not really thought about!
Time after time I watched how God can use us – faulty, flawed, imperfect as we are – as long as we are faithful and obedient to His call. Remember, we talked about how God used fleas to accomplish His plan. Well, guess what – if God can use a flea, then He can use your difficult circumstances! If God can use a flea, then He can use that terrible thing that happened. If God can use a flea, then He can use you! He does not need to use you, but He wants to use you, because when you in your weakness accomplish something great, then He is glorified! This summer I realized that whenever anything went right, whenever I said the right thing, or was able to help someone else, it was not because of me – I know my own weaknesses! It was because of God and so He is the One who deserves all the glory.
So, I’m afraid this was all rather jumbled, but these are just some of the things I started to see this summer and have been thinking about since then. So my thoughts are what you see on the page! I supposed it doesn’t really matter if it makes sense to anyone else, since writing it all down has helped to make it clearer in my own mind! :)
Narnia and the North! The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Part II
Narnia and the North! The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Part II
“Aslan?” said Mr. Beaver. “Why, don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. Never in my time or my father’s time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He’ll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, who will save Mr. Tumnus.”
“She won’t turn him into stone, too?” said Edmund.
“Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!” answered Mr. Beaver with a great laugh. “Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it’ll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no. He’ll put all to rights…”
“That you will, dearie, and no mistake.” Said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” (Psalms 19:1)
“He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.” (Psalms 147: 4-5)
“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth.”
“When I consider your heaves, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
“I’ve come at last,” said he (Father Christmas). “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch’s magic is weakening.”
“They (Peter, Susan, and Lucy) hadn’t even known for certain (as the Witch did) that this was what would happen when Aslan came to Narnia. But they all knew that it was her spells which had produced the endless winter; and therefore they all knew when this magic spring began that something had gone wrong, and badly wrong, with the Witch’s schemes.”
“But as for Aslan himself, the Beavers and the children didn’t know what to do or say when they saw him. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him and went all trembly.”
“I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk
By your side…
Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in honor of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine…”
“You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch… “Well,” said Aslan. “His offence was not against you…”
“You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill…”
“And so,” continued the Witch, “that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10: 17-18)
“And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.”
“There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane… stood Aslan himself.”
Luke 24:36:“While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
I Corinthians 15: 3-4 “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Sciptures…”
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards…”
Hebrews 2:14 “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
“but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (II Timothy 1:10)
I Corinthians 15: 52b and 54-57 “…For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed… When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Revelation 20:14 “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.”
Revelation 21:4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
And, from the resurrection of Aslan onwards, the restoration of Narnia begins! There is a great battle in which the Witch is utterly defeated by Aslan and the Narnians. The reign of the Witch is ended, the Witch herself is dead, and the four children are crowned kings and queens over Narnia: High King Peter the Magnificent, High Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant. Their rule, in later years, becomes known as the Golden Age of Narnia.