MEDITATION:
Written by Donald J. Shelby (1931-2012), an American pastor and author. This is from his book “Forever Beginning.”
Temptations, frustrations, and pressures beset believers today, and our new life in Christ can be easily compromised and betrayed. In fact, it may be as difficult—if not more so—to live out a new life in our day than it was in the first century. This, paradoxically, because the pressures are more subtle, the temptations are cloaked with respectability, and the gray areas of compromise are almost the norm. It is neither easy nor simple to translate our commitment to Christ into the living of our days. It does not happen instantaneously or automatically, but it is instead a process of growth and development, including reversals, retreats, detours, beginning over, and moving ahead. We need such an understanding of our journey at the very outset because there are those who claim otherwise, who promote the new life in Christ as a kind of idyllic state of spiritual perfection in which there are no doubts, uncertainties, stumblings, or time of falling away. Such claims are simply not true, are very misleading, and result in unnecessary anguish and discouragement.
PRAYER:
The prayer today is a traditional Scottish Gaelic prayer.
As the rain hides the stars,
as the autumn mist
hides the hills,
as the clouds veil
the blue of the sky, so
the dark happenings of my lot
hide the shining of thy face from me.
Yet, if I may hold thy hand in the darkness,
it is enough, since I know,
that though I may stumble in my going,
Thou dost not fall.
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