THE GIRL WITH NO EARS?

(NOTE: THe little girl in the picture above is NOT the little girl without ears I once knew so many years ago. She just represents her).

“They have ears, but they cannot hear” 

(Psalm 115:6, NASB).

Many years ago, when I was a young boy of around 8 or 9 years old, I was admitted into the hospital for sick children in Ontario, to undergo a serious operation on my kidneys. I remember being self-conscious around other children my age in regards to my missing thumb on my left hand. I remember one day while playing in the children’s toy room, which was rather large from what I can remember. There I frequently talked with and played with other sick children. Then one day, a couple of little girls I haven't seen before, roughly around my age, came into the play room. Feeling a little self-conscious, I hid my left hand in my pant pocket. I was feeling a little depressed that day as I thought about my missing thumb and the fights I would get into with other kids who would mock me, and remind me of my missing body part, which usually would erupt into a fight. Anyway, a girl who was a couple years older than me noticed I was sad. She was familiar with me coming to the play room each day. She new the arguments and fights that sometimes would happen over the fact I had no left thumb. So after enquiring about why I was sad, she introduced me to a beautiful dark haired girl who had come in with the other girls I hadn't seen before. The older girl told me my missing thumb was only a minor disability. She then said "try getting through life deaf and having no ears." Then she drew my attention to the pretty little girl with us, and said she was deaf and had a birth defect where she had no ears.  Funny how people who are deaf, or have no ears like this little girl can hear the needs of others far better than those of us who have ears and can hear. How true are the words of the psalmist, “They have ears, but they cannot hear” (Psalm 115:6, NASB). Often we can be just like these dumb idols.

FEELING DISSATISFIED, BE SATISFIED IN CHRIST!

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5, ESV).

There are times when I am alone with my thoughts that I experience a sense of dissatisfaction with the things of this present life. For example, my birthday should be a time of celebration for God’s goodness to me over the past year. Yet, I find myself experiencing the hollow dissatisfaction of spending my Birthday alone. Then there is Christmas time and all its commercialism that kills the true meaning of the holiday season. I enjoy each year spending Christmas home with my family, still that sense of being bored or dissatisfied is still with me. It’s like such times have lost their meaning, their freshness and life. Not only that, but it seems I have more of a keen awareness of being dissatisfied with a lot of things in my life. Despite how I feel, I am determined to find my delight in the Lord and Him alone. For true lasting satisfaction can only come from Him. For the Christian, Christmas is much more than jolly feelings during this festive time, it’s about remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ and why He came into the world. Satisfaction is not found in the passing things of this present life, but rather true satisfaction can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. The psalmist writes: “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” (Psalm 107:9, ESV). See also “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.” (Psalm 34:10, ESV); “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11, ESV); “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matt. 5:6, ESV). The term satisfied is expressed in each of these Bible verses mentioned in these key phrases, “satisfies, fills,”  “lack no good thing,” “No good thing does he withhold,” “satisfied.” 

Dissatisfaction or Contentment,

These fruits are quite the pair!

One is rotten, while the other is fresh,

Choose one if you dare!

Two fruits with one choice,

One is bitter, while the other is sweet!

One is awful to the taste,

While the other is a treat that can't be beat!

The fruit of discontentment eats away at your soul,

While you eat of its bitterness.

The fruit of satisfaction fills the emptiness inside,

While you eat of its sweetness,

In Christ you must abide!

Others May, You Cannot!

 by George Watson, 1845-1924

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." Matthew 16:24-25

If God has called you to be truly like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience, that you will not be allowed to follow other Christians. In many ways, He seems to let other believers do things which He will not let you do.

Others who seem to be very religious and useful, may push themselves up to be admired, and scheme to carry out their plans, but you cannot. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag about themselves, their work, their successes, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin to do so, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money, or in having a legacy left to them, or in having luxuries, but God may supply you only on a day-to-day basis, because He wants you to have something far better than gold—a helpless dependence on Him and His unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, while keeping you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit in you, which can only be produced in the shade.

God may let others be great, but He will keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit, but He will make you work and toil without others knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done. This to teach you the message of the Cross and humility.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, and with a jealous love rebuke you for careless words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own and that He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you.

If you absolutely give yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other Christian people say and do many things which you cannot.

However, know this great secret of the Kingdom: When you are so completely possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, then you will have found the vestibule of Heaven, the high calling of God.