The Prayer of St. Francis

My oldest granddaughter gave me a bookmark as a gift on Christmas morning and it touched my heart as a prayer to be prayed and lived out as a Normal Christian.

The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

This simple prayer is attributed to St. Francis of Assissi.

The Incarnation

During this time of the year when most Christians are thinking about the birth of Jesus, it is important to contemplate the meaning of the Jesus coming as a baby, as a man. The mystery of the Incarnation is Jesus, all God and all man. The Lord Jesus came as man to serve, to provide a way of salvation, to give His life to us.

Mark 10:45 (NIV) – "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

I picked up a new book about spiritual life and a quote from the author ‘jumped off the page’ at me.
The Divine Embrace, Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life by Robert E. Webber
“In the incarnation God and man are united. In the incarnation God lifted humanity into union with himself in Jesus. The union humanity once had with God, lost in Adam, is now restored. God has restored union with humanity through his own two hands. God, the incarnate Word, united with our humanity by the Spirit, reverses the human condition through his death and resurrection.”
(P. 40)

The Body Human (Part 1)

For a while I have looked for a book written by a medical doctor which would describe the human body and how intricately it is created. During the Thanksgiving holiday I borrowed a book entitled “What Darwin Didn’t Know” by Geoffrey Simmons, M.D. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I have found such a book.

I may get into the thesis of the book later, but for this post, I would like to provide a suggestion for the reader. I suggest we do not have to go out into nature (however this is a good thing to do) to be able to see the beauty of His creation. We have only to contemplate our bodies and how He created us to be able to breathe, walk, love, and do all the things which make us human. We can see His wonderful design. We can see His love for us.

The author provides an understanding of the intricacies of the human body when he writes, “The interior of the human body is a much busier place than New York City, London, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Bombay combined. Ten to seventy-five trillion cells participate in more than a quadrillion purposeful chemical interactions each day that help us walk, breathe, think, sleep, procreate, see, hear, smell, feel, digest food, eliminate waste, write, read, talk, make red cells, remove dead cells, fight infections, behave, misbehave, absorb nutrients, transport oxygen, eliminate carbon dioxide, maintain balance, carry on dialogue, understand instructions, argue, and make complex decisions, just to name a few common activities. In addition, each of these processes has dozens – and sometimes hundreds – of smaller, interacting steps, checks, counterchecks, balances, and regulatory mechanisms. And further, all of these steps have smaller chemical substeps. In many ways the human body functions like an extremely well-organized blizzard of invisible chemical responses and rapidly-changing electrical impulses. The human brain is a convoluted continent swept by microscopic electrical hurricanes and chemical tidal waves that somehow make sense out of reality on a microsecond-by-microsecond basis.” (P. 16)

Future posts will provide a deeper look into the creation of the senses and various systems of our body.

Who God Is? Tozer

There are two Tozer quotes which have touched my heart for many years. This morning I was able to locate them in his books so I can feel good quoting them on this blog. They are delightful in reference to what the Lord means to me and you.

The Knowledge of the Holy, The Wisdom of God
“With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack?”

The Pursuit of God, Removing the Veil
God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can without anything other than Himself meet and overflow the deepest demands and longings of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

My prayer is that everyone reading this blog will allow these words to penetrate their mind and their heart, bring them into their spirit where the Lord lives in them, and to continually practice His Presence and exercise their spirit. Amen!!!!