“There is no music during a musical rest, but the rest is part of the making of the music. In the melody of our life, the music is separated here and there by rests. During those rests, we foolishly believe we have come to the end of the song. God sends us times of forced leisure by allowing sickness, disappointed plans, and frustrated efforts. He brings a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives, and we lament that our voices must be silent. We grieve that our part is missing in the music that continually rises to the ear of our Creator. Yet how does a musician read the rest? He counts the break with unwavering precision and plays his next note with confidence, as if no pause were ever there. God does not write the music of our lives without a plan. Our part is to learn the tune and not be discouraged during the rest. They are not to be slurred over or omitted, nor used to destroy the melody or to change the key. If we will only look up, God Himself will count the time for us. With our eyes on Him, our next note will be full and clear. If we sorrowfully say to ourselves, ‘There is no music in a rest,’ let us not forget that the rest is part of the making of the music.” —John Ruskin
Handling Life’s Pauses
February 2, 2016 — Craig T. OwensWeek Of Prayer—Saturday
January 9, 2016 — Craig T. Owens
Our week of prayer concludes today with this prayer focus—
Give praise to God for this powerful assurance that He is working out His plans and purposes in your life, both in the present and in the future.
All week long we have been praying God’s Word. Here’s a prayer thought you might want to pray today:
Father, I know that all plans you have for my life are plans to prosper me and not to harm me. They are plans to give me hope and a future [Jeremiah 29:11]. Sometimes it appears things have gotten off track, but I know that You are able to use even my “mistakes” to work out all the details of Your loving plan for my life [Romans 8:28].
Today I pray the same prayer You honored in the life of someone else who cried out to You for help: “Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain” [1 Chronicles 4:10]. I believe You are powerful enough to complete all You have determined to do for my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thursdays With Oswald—The Long Trail
January 7, 2016 — Craig T. Owens
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The Long Trail
When we are busy with our own outlook on life, it seems as if God were indifferent. Our human patience, as well as our impatience, gets to the point of saying—‘Why does not God do things?’ Redemption is complete; we believe that Our Lord has all power in heaven and on earth, then why is it such a long while before things happen? Why is God so long in making actual His answers to our prayers? When in such a state of mind we are capable of becoming bitter against God unless we are led into the inner secret of Our Lord’s own attitude. …
Each of the temptations presented to Our Lord by satan had this as its center: ‘You will get the Kingship of men and the Saviorhood of the world if you will take a “shortcut”—put man’s needs first, and he will crown You King; do something extraordinarily wonderful, indicative of Your power, and man will crown You King; compromise with evil, and You will get the Kingship of men.’ Jesus could have brought the whole thing about suddenly (cf. John 6:15); but He did not. He withstood satan and took the stupendously long way. …
It takes a long time to realize what Jesus is after, and the person you need most patience with is yourself. God takes deliberate time with us, He does not hurry, because we can only appreciate His point of view by a long discipline.
From The Place Of Help
Do you trust that God knows what He’s doing? He has something great in mind for your life, something that will bring Him glory. That is the reason He created you (see Ephesians 2:10).
Hang in there … something good will come of this long trail (see Romans 5:3-5).
16 Insightful Quotes From “Intentional Living”
November 15, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
John Maxwell’s books always contain so many great quotes from other wise men and women. Here are a few that caught my highlighter in Intentional Living.
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” —Soren Kierkegaard
“If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” —T.S. Eliot
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently…. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs
“One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental ‘I should’ list.” —Jim Rohn
“You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of a referee.” —Napoleon Hill
“Most people don’t aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit.” —Bob Moawad
“Anybody can do their best. God helps us do better than our best.” —Catherine Bramwell-Booth
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it makes some difference that you have lived and lived well.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.” —Rabbi Harold Kushner
“People who matter most are aware that everyone else does, too.” —Malcolm Forbes
“Selfishness is the greatest challenge for a coach. Most players are more concerned with making themselves better than the team.” —John Wooden
“There is a direct relationship between your own level of self-esteem and the health of your personality. The more you like and respect yourself, the more you like and respect other people. The more you consider yourself to be a valuable and worthwhile person, the more you consider others to be valuable and worthwhile as well. The more you accept yourself just as you are, the more you accept others just as they are.” —Brian Tracy
“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” —Mother Teresa
“Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring. Choose the way of hope. Choose the way of belief in tomorrow. Choose the way of trusting. Choose the way of goodness. It’s up to you.” —Leo Buscaglia
“We’re concerned with how things turn out; God seems more concerned with how we turn out.” —Philip Yancey
“Most hockey players follow the puck on the ice. I never skate to where the puck is. I skate to where it is going.” —Wayne Gretzky
John Maxwell has a lot of great quotes himself! Here is the first batch of quotes I shared from Intentional Living. And be sure to check out my review of this outstanding book.
Links & Quotes
September 7, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
“The reason we know so little about God’s wisdom is that we will only trust Him as far as we can work things out according to our own reasonable common sense.” —Oswald Chambers
“To know God in His glory is to know ultimate reality—defining beauty, goodness, and truth. It is to enter into the heart of reality itself and to glimpse eternity in a most personal, intimate, and loving way. This is what God desires for us, that our hearts might soar within His glory and rejoice in things too wonderful to express.” —T.M. Moore
“My greatest fear in life is standing before the Lord and hearing Him say, ‘I had so much more for you, but you held on too tightly.’” —Larry Burkett
“Give me good proofs of what you have alleged: it is not enough to say—in such a bush there lies a thief—in such a cave a beast; you must show him to me ere I shoot, else I may kill one of my straggling sheep.” —William Shakespeare
“A man must keep his friendship in constant repair.” —Samuel Johnson
Eric Metaxas asks, “Why would a national museum refuse to remove an exhibit honoring one of the leading racists of the 20th century?” Check out his profound answer.
Thank you, Bear Grylls, for giving us a great example to follow! May we all pray for our President.
Exactly right: Christians cannot stand by and do nothing about these precious people displaced by war.
A very interesting legal look at the Kim Davis situation in Kentucky.
No Plan B
March 9, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
In my family, what starts off as Plan A at the beginning of the day is highly likely to end up as Plan K-13 by the end of the day! We just try to be flexible and roll with the changes.
But we must be careful about giving the characteristic of “flexibility” to God—He doesn’t need to be flexible and modify His plans. He has no Plan B; everything is His Plan A.
Jesus is described as being the sacrificial Lamb from before the dawn of Creation (1 Peter 1:18-20). And in Heaven Jesus is still known as the Lamb that was slain (Revelation 13:8 and 5:5-6). Jesus coming to earth to die on an old rugged Cross was always God’s Plan A. The whole time Jesus Christ was on earth, He knew what was happening.
Here are 5 things Jesus knew. He knew…
- …when His time had come, and that all things were about to be fulfilled through His crucifixion—John 13:1, 3
- …the exact sequence of events leading up to His death on Calvary—Matthew 20:17-19
- …the immutability of the Scriptures—Matthew 26:53-56
- …the infallibility of the Scriptures—Luke 24:25-27
- …that God would be glorified in fulfilling His Plan A—John 12:27-28
With this in mind, here are 5 things we should know. We should know…
- …that all my days were written down before the dawn of Creation—Psalm 139:16
- …God loves me more than I can fathom—Psalm 139:17
- …my life was always intended to be a part of God’s Plan A—Ephesians 2:10
- …no weapon formed against God’s Plan A for me will succeed—Isaiah 54:17
- …that God will be glorified in fulfilling His Plan A in my life—Romans 8:28
The old rugged Cross reminds us that God’s Plan A was always for Christ’s death to make it possible for our lives to make sense!
As Andrew Murray wrote: “God fully relied on His Son to see to it that His honor was respected. And in Jesus we too may bravely enter this covenant without fear that we will not be able to fulfill it. We can rely upon Jesus to see to it that He will bring everything to completion. Jesus has not only discharged our old debt but also undertaken the responsibility for whatever else may be required.”
I’ll be continuing our series on The Old Rugged Cross this Sunday, and I hope you can join me.
13 More Quotes From “Notes On Ezekiel”
January 29, 2015 — Craig T. Owens
Here are some more quotes from Oswald Chambers’ book Notes On Ezekiel. My book review is here, and my first set of quotes from this book is here.
“We are too shallow to be afraid of God. … It requires a miracle of grace before we believe this, consequently we are foolishly fearless, but when the grace of God lifts us into the life of God we fear nothing and no one saving God alone. … Confusion arises when we do not see God as Almighty.”
“God will put us in circumstances where we have to take steps of which we do not see the meaning, only on looking back do we discern that it was God’s will for us.”
“We are always on the wrong line when we come to God with a pre-occupied mind because a pre-occupied mind springs from a disloyal heart: ‘I don’t want to do God’s will, what I want is for God to give me permission to do what I want to do.’”
“What God burns is not weakness, not imperfection, but perverted goodness.”
“Every part of our human nature which is not brought into subjection to the Holy Spirit after experiencing deliverance from sin will prove a corrupting influence.”
“We all have the sneaking idea that we are the favorites of God—‘It’s alright for me to do this, God will understand.’ If I as a child of God commit sin, I will be as sternly dealt with as if I were not His child.”
“Don’t tie God up in your own conceptions, or say too surely you know what God will do. … The sovereign purposes of God work out slowly and inexorably, but ever be careful to note where God’s sovereignty is at work among men in matters of history and Time, and where it is at work in matters of eternal destiny. Beware of allowing your memory of how God has worked to take the place of present vital moral relationship to Him.”
“When I have been using ‘the sword of the Spirit’ in a spirit of indignation against another, it is a terrible experience to find the sword suddenly wrested out of my hand and laid about me personally by God. Let your personal experience of the work of God’s Spirit instruct you at the foot of Calvary; let the light of God riddle you through, then you will never use the Word of God to another, never turn the light of God on him, without fear and trembling.”
“Liberty is the ability to obey the law of God, with the power to live according to its demands; license is the unrestrained impulse to traffic against the law of God. … The seal of immorality is that I do what I like; the seal of freedom is that I do what God likes.”
“If the Holy Spirit is obeyed the stubbornness is blown out, the dynamite of the Holy Ghost blows it out.”
“Pride in its most estimable as well as its most debased form is self-deification; it is not a yielding to temptation from without, but a distinct alteration of relationships within.”
“I may suffer because of the sins of my progenitors—I am never punished for them.”
“In dealing with Bible experiences we must ever make allowance for the miraculous, which never contradicts reason, but very often does contradict common sense. The miraculous transcends reason and lifts it into another world than the logical one, consequently spiritual experience is something I have lived through, not thought through.”
Links & Quotes
July 30, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
Some interesting reading from today…
“A gracious Hand leads us in ways we know not, and blesses us not only without, but even against, our plans and inclinations.” —William Wilberforce
A cool article about George MacDonald’s influence on C.S. Lewis.
Ken Davis uses an optical illusion to make a fantastic point in his post Perception Or Reality?
The son of a Hamas founder confirms that this terrorist group targets civilians.
[INFOGRAPHIC] This is a win-win: Benaiah featured on The Overview Bible Project.
Praise God!! Millions of Muslims converting to Jesus Christ!
“Commend me to the Christian who says, ‘I bless God I am saved; now what can I do for others?’ The first thing in the morning he prays, ‘God help me to say a word to some soul this day.’ During the day, wherever he may be, he is watching his opportunity, and will do good if he can.” —Charles Spurgeon
“There’s a great deal of trust in the love of God, and a great deal of love in the trust of God.” —John Piper
Thursdays With Oswald—The Patience Of The Saints
February 27, 2014 — Craig T. OwensThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The Patience Of The Saints
The patience of the saints may be illustrated by the figure of a bow and arrow in the hands of God. He sees the target and takes aim, He strains the bow, not to breaking-point, however sever the pain may seem to the saint, but to just that point whence the arrow will fly with surest, swiftest speed to the bull’s-eye.
The patience of the saints, like the patience of our Lord, puts the sovereignty of God over all the saint’s career….
From Christian Disciplines
This talk of patience is the last thing Oswald Chambers discusses in his rather lengthy book Christian Disciplines. We have to remember that God is working in our lives with the view of eternity in mind. We often want things microwave-fast: “Okay, God, go ahead and do something in my life, but do it quickly!”
God’s timing is perfect. His plan is set, and He knows exactly when, where, and how to launch us. Wait for Him. Wait in expectation. Wait in readiness. Wait in hope that He will accomplish exactly what He wants to accomplish, at exactly the right moment He wants to accomplish it.
Links & Quotes
February 17, 2014 — Craig T. Owens
These are links to articles and quotes I found interesting today.
What the what? An App To Help You While Out On A Date
“God deserves to be served with all the energy of which we are capable. If the service of God is worth anything, it is worth everything.” —Charles Spurgeon
For you Detroit Tigers fans: When Willie Horton Walked Out On The Tigers
[VIDEO] A cool interaction between a garbage collector and an autistic boy
Interesting: How Millionaires Manage Their Time
Good reminder from Jeff Bonzelaar: satan Serves God
“No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.” —Isaac Newton
“Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power.” —Baron Justus von Liebig (1803-1873), German chemist
[VIDEO] My daughter asks Seth to Swirl: Will You Be My Date?
My most-viewed posts
Craig T. Owens 