Among the Watering Places with Liz

     Gethsemane was a place of crushing.  Here, in the agony of prayer, Jesus' sweat fell like great drops of blood and an angel from heaven came to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43).  I nterfacing with the angel reinvigorated the Lord.  He would be strong enough now to face the lethally violent confrontation with the enemy of God.       The angel’s appearance to Jesus in His moment of extreme crisis is the first time t his verb “to strengthen or invigorate” ( Gk. enischuo ) is used in the NT.   P roperly, it means being strong enough to face  necessary confrontation , that is, engage resistance .   In this case, Jesus resisted His own will and bowed before the will of His Father. Physical death was not averted, but neither was resurrection.       When Jesus asked His closest friends, “Will you not watch with me one hour?” there is no doubt that the death knell was already ringing for Him.   He had mad...

D.L. Moody once said, "In the valley of the shadow of death there must be a light,  otherwise there could not be a shadow."            After a holiday in South Africa, some years ago, my husband Peter and I began the flight home together from Johannesburg, but due to an airline mix-up, we were separated in Mauritius.  He was off-loaded and obliged to stay in Port Louis for a week until the next available flight to Australia.  It was a frustrating time for him as he had no ready cash and was obliged to put up in a very shabby hotel.  Out of sheer boredom, he caught the local bus every day and rode around the island.  His only other occupation was to read James A. Mitchener's lengthy novel Centennial , two and a half times.       Mid-week, Mauritius was hit by a cyclone.  The palm trees along the centre of the capital city's streets were flattened, broken off at their base by the terrific winds wh...

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. Isa 43:2 NLT       When I cannot understand, I can choose to trust in God's goodness. It is in the hour of our infirmity when we do not know how to pray, that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf with groanings that cannot, and perhaps need not, be uttered.

     "Scripture's task is to tell people, at the risk of their displeasure, the mystery of God and the secrets of their own hearts - to speak out and make a clean breast.  There are many ways to say and write these truths:  in oracles, in poems, in novels, in sermons, in satire, in journalism, in drama.      Honestly written and courageously presented words reveal reality and expose our selfish attempts to violate beauty, manipulate goodness and dominate people, all the while defying God.  Most of us most of the time, whether consciously or not, live this way.      Honest writing shows us how badly we are living and how good life is. Enlightenment is not without pain.  But the pain, accepted and endured, is not a maiming but a purging.  "Every significant utterance is a wound, but 'faithful are the wounds of a friend'.""                           ...

" Gentleness follows on from humility.  How precious is this attitude and so necessary when the one loved is fragile.  What Jesus applied to Himself in Matthew 11:28-30 has a lovely application to a married couple.  Gentleness is inner 'muscle' deliberately yoked to the weakness of the other so as to empower him/her to handle the burden of the moment."  Ray Hawkins, From Eden with Love , 30. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.   Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” NIV

"...The material world is intended to enhance human life.      "It is also the realm or the place where we are to develop our spirit under God.  One of the main functions of matter is to mediate the presence of an infinite God to finite minds.  The Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were divinely appointed arrangements so that God could be with human beings without destroying them.  The same is true of the coming of the Messiah as a babe in a manger.  These material realities are all graciously designed to allow for the necessary space between us and God.  In this way God can come to us and we, in turn, can come to God.  Divine realities are thus mediated to us through the finite realities of our personal histories, our social experiences, our physical bodies." Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water , p. 216 For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him might have everlasting life. John 3:16 ...

Agape is one of four Koine Greek words translated as 'love'.  Many years ago I read this challenging definition of the agape brand of God-love: the expending of energy for the benefit of another without concern for the cost to self. Pause and think deeply on that in the face of the babe given as a gift to the world, whose coming we celebrate at Christmas.