Hopeful

 

Accept His Guidance

 

His Love

 

Eyes Above

 

Trust

 

Trust in Him

 

Prayer

 

Grace

 

Christ-like love begins with the vulnerability of forgiveness and may bring suffering because of sin in other people, but that is not the end of our story.  Forgiving and loving like Jesus did ends with redemption and resurrection. It is worth the cost of loving.  

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But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

1 Peter 2:23

Release, Then Peace

 

Strength for Today

 

Trust the Future to Him

 

Not Our Strength, but His

 

Trust in Truth

 

Eyes on Jesus

 

He Arose!

 

The Past Has No Power

 

Keep on Moving

 

Even Our Sin and Failure

 

This Is Love

 

He Came to Us, Became One of Us

 

Come as You Are

 

Revive Me, O Lord!

 

His Name Is Jesus

 

Keep Our Eyes on Jesus

 

Our Home

 

He Is With Us

 

One Way

 

Blessing for Those We Love

 

Walk By the Spirit

 

Follow God's Lead

 

Be Careful Little Eyes...

 This post is a departure from my "desk calendar" memes, designed to provide an encouraging word each morning to caregivers and others who like a Scripture a day with occasional accompanying thoughts... 

I'm thinking this evening about the movies we watch, the books we  read, and the electronic games we play.

This week, I heard about a well-written, well-researched book that was an enjoyable read.  I checked it out as an audio book and immediately found the author is indeed skilled in making her readers see what she describes; the foreword included a graphic description of a dead body. In the beginning chapters, a violent assault was described in such detail that I felt nauseated.  I stopped listening about five minutes in and then thought, "Oh maybe this is just a temporary method of grabbing our attention..."  I fast-forwarded at random and found details of yet another assault, of more people dying, and of a man being shot. I was not helped that the narrator of the audio version of this book had a chirpy, young voice, and as she read in first person, sounded unfailingly cheerful at the beginning of each new chapter regardless of the horrors the main character had seen or endured.  In my perception, the poor heroine of this story would have been so disabled by PTSD that she would not have been able to speak at all.   

The reviews of this book at Amazon are mostly 4 and 5 stars.  

The book was well-written and well-researched, but does that excuse the relentless description of disturbing scenes and events?  I would have to read the book more carefully than I am willing to do to find out. 

I do know that our appetites for entertainment have become gradually benumbed by violence on an escalating scale so that we have grown more tolerant of that which is ugly and frightening. If questioned about a book such as the one I've described here, we might say that we want our literature to be realistic, but media that provides a matter-of-fact description of evil events without a balancing account of God's mercy through those events is not realistic.  A desire for realism is no excuse for focusing on what is ugly in the world. If we focus on what is really real, we will have our eyes turned toward Jesus and our hearts set on eternity.  

I'm not going to read this book carefully and so I'm not qualified to leave a review, but I can make a recommendation: if you want a good book, I recommend anything by Jan Karon.  She handles accounts of sorrow, joy, life, and death backlit by the love and provision of our Lord and Savior. 

 What we see and hear bears fruit in how we view our world.  Every day we have multiple choices to feed either fears or faith. The enemy wants us bound by fear, and so he is liable to be behind things that are disturbing and frightening.  We need to be careful what we take into our minds and hearts, and intentional in putting our eyes on the Lord.  

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Philippians 4:9 NIV

Restorative Love