“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” – Colossians 4:2
The purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving yesterday was to remind us to be thankful today and every day. What was worth being thankful for yesterday is still with you today!
If Christianity is true, this is not “being a Pollyanna” or seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. Live like it is true by making thanksgiving a habit, not a holiday.
Dear fellow travelers,
Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, five quotes on the theme of good vs evil:
“The majority of us begin with the bigger problems outside and forget the one inside. A man has to learn ‘the plague of his own heart’ before his own problems can be solved” – Oswald Chambers
“I think the battle between good and evil is fought largely within the individual human heart, by the decisions that we make. It’s not like evil dresses up in black clothing and you know, they’re really ugly” – Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin
“When people do bad things in the name of religion people say religion is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of profit people say profit is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of science people say science is inherently bad; When people do bad things in the name of government people say government is inherently bad; but have you noticed that every one of these is ‘people do bad things’ but when you say people do bad things because people are inherently bad, people say you are a mean person and out of your mind.” – Anonymous internet comment
“The line separating good and evil passes, not through states, not between political parties either, but right through all human hearts.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” – the apostle Paul, in Romans 7:21-25
Isaiah 55:12-13
“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the LORD,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
Fellow travelers,
Today may bring thorns and briers, but as we travel toward eternity, consider the marvelous picture of nature glorified in a new heaven and earth in this Psalm.
First, the mountains and trees we experience in this world may not be the same as trees in heaven. They will rejoice when the perfect creation is made manifest because they are not fully what they should be now. Tolkien may have been thinking of this when creating the Ents of Middle Earth. If the trees are described as clapping in heaven, what will people do?
Bring some of that joy to this earth.
Second, the Psalm describes a direct reversal of the curse on Adam in Gen 3:17-18, where the ground would be cursed and “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” Instead, the cypress and myrtle will come up. The new creation will not fight against us, but instead sprout glory after glory.
Bring some of that glory to this earth.
Dear fellow travelers,
Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, five quotes on the theme of popular opinion when it goes wrong:
“Those who call for Nonsense will find that it comes.” – C.S. Lewis
“We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.” – Charles Mackay
“The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but resistance to the despotism of public opinion.” – Ludwig von Mises
“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.” – George Orwell
“Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20
Fellow travelers,
Here is another “Quint of Quotes” from my collection, on the subject of truth:
“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” – Pascal (in 1670)
“All truths are not to be spoken at all times, though an untruth is not to be spoken at any time.” – Matthew Henry
“Grace without truth would be deceitful, and truth without grace would be condemning.” – Warren Wiersbe
“It is better to will the good than to know the truth” – Petrarch
“Christianity knows no truth which is not the child of love and the parent of duty.” – Philips Brooks
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 