For those that happen to stumble across this blog, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted in ages! This is for a number of reasons (which I won’t bore you with here, you can see what I have been up to at my blog). Also, Letters of Faith is into Volume 2 now which I haven’t picked up yet. If I am able to I will get it and start posting again. I will also pick up Volume 1 again at the new year and add new reflections so be sure to check back!

February 20th through March 3rd center on issues relating to Law and Grace.

Kathy Kreiner-Phillips (1957-) won a gold metal at the 1976 winter Olympic Games in giant slalom writes a letter to the editor on the anniversary of her victory.

So now I skied the race of my life, not losing focus from top to bottom of the mountain. It was almost an out-of-body experience, where everything flowed effortless, as if I wasn’t even trying. Was this really just a simple new beginning, of having a new spirit, of literally hurling oneself down the mountain in the arms of my heavenly Father? Had he really heard my little prayer? Was this really part of a larger plan for my life, or was it the only way that he might have got my attention?

In the middle of her Olympic kickoff, Kreiner gave herself and desires over to go. Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV) (part of the Shema) reminds us that we shall

love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

I love the Shema (שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד) and wish it was used more in the Christian Church. God isn’t just a first priority, He is in control of everything and we should recognize what He truly is to us!

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) was a Catholic monk who lived in the central Sahara who took up a great interest in the Desert Fathers writes here about his conversion.

In the beginning faith had many obstacles to overcome; I, who had doubted so much, I did not believe everything in one day. Sometimes the miracles of the Gospel seemed unbelievable to me, sometimes I wanted to mix passages from the Koran in my prayers. But God’s grace and the counsel of my confessor dispersed the clouds… I wished to be a monk, to live only for God, to do only what was most perfect, whatever that might be […] The Gospel showed me that “the first commandment is to love God with one’s whole heart” and that everything had to be contained in love.

I like the notion that we don’t have to get it all at once. Faith is something that is nurtured and built up over time and not something we will perfectly understand all at once. But if we remember his commandment of love for one another, we will be ok. 1 Corinthians 1:28 (ESV) says:

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are

God will use us all, even as broken humans, because he has indwelt the Spirit in us!

Francis Ridley Havergal (1836-1879) was a 19th century hymn writer who reflects on her conversion three years after her mother died when she was 12.

I made of confidante of Miss Cook (shortly to become my step-mother)… I sat on the sofa alone with her, and told her I longed to know that I was forgiven. I assured her I desired it above everything on earth…. “Then Fanny, I am sure, it will not be very long before your desire is granted, your hope fulfilled…. Would his call, his promise, be enough for you? Could you not commit your soul to him, your Savior, Jesus?” […] “I could, surely” was my response. I flung myself on my knees, and strove to realize the new hope. I could commit my soul to Jesus… I did trust the Lord Jesus.

Quite a lovely reflection, very simple and beautiful I think. Luke 6:45 (ESV) says:

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, … for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Let Jesus into your heart, let Him so infuse himself into who you are and nothing but good will come for you!

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher who reflects here upon his conversion to Christianity after hearing a sermon while visiting his sister.

If I had but seen a miracle, say some men, should I not be converted? They would not talk in this matter, if they knew what conversion really meant. They imagine there is nothing in it but merely to acknowledge there is a God; and that to worship him consists only in uttering certain verbal addresses, but little different from those which the heathens made to their idols. True conversion consists in deep abasement of ourselves before that sovereign Being whom we have so often provoked, and who every moment might justly destroy us; in acknowledging that we can do nothing without his aid, and that we have merited nothing of him but his displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is such an invincible opposition between God and ourselves, that without a Mediator there could not be any communion between us.

Wow. Now that is telling it like it is! Conversion is more than a mental or cerebral exercise, it has to come from somewhere deeper and from our longing to see God. Psalm 119:34 (ESV):

Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.

If we were given understanding, it wouldn’t be enough. Our hearts must respond do God’s call. In Pensées Pascal wrote, “The heart has its reason that reason knows not of.” Aren’t mathematicians great!?