July 14, 2023For those of us living in southern Quebec and eastern Ontario, yesterday was a frightening day weather-wise. Karen and I were in Rawdon with friends when we learned that there was a tornado warning. One of the questions that came to mind immediately was “Should we stay or should we go?” When the sky looked less threatening, we decided to get in the car and drive home. Besides a delay near the Mercier bridge, we had a smooth trip home and were thankful to the Lord for His protection.
Last Sunday we were blessed by attending Christ Proclamation Church in Windsor, CT, where our son-in-law, Richie, serves as an assistant pastor. To view Pastor Steve Thiel’s insightful sermon on Jesus’ parable of the soils in Mark 4:1-20, please visit: https://www.christproclamation.org/sermons/sermon/2023-07-09/parable-of-the-soils
This month I have been reading “Future Grace” by Dr. John Piper. There are 31 chapters – one for each day of July. In yesterday’s chapter, there is a story from Karl Olsson’s book “Passion,” recounting the amazing patience of French Protestants called Huguenots:
“In the late Seventeenth Century in … southern France, a girl named Marie Durant was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy. She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable. She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith. She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even to change the day-to-day quality of her behavior. She was only asked to say, ‘J’abjure.’ No more, no less. She did not comply. Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea.… For thirty-eight years she, together, with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Résistez, resist!
The word is still seen and gaped at by tourists on the stone wall at Aigues-Mortes…. We do not understand the terrifying simplicity of a religious commitment which asks nothing of time and gets nothing from time. We can understand a religion which enhances time … But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better. To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh … and still to persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.”
Dr. Piper reflects on this: “I wonder if we can understand such patience. Surely we cannot, if ‘temporal’ hope is the only kind we have. But if there is a hope beyond this temporal life – if future grace extends into eternity – then there may be a profound understanding of such patience in this life.”
May we trust the Lord in every area of our life, claiming the promises of His Word, and sharing the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus with people around the world.
Scripture for the weekend: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; lovingkindness and truth go before You. How blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! O Lord, they walk in the light of Your countenance. In Your name they rejoice all the day, and by Your righteousness they are exalted.” Psalm 89:14-16 (NASB)
By His grace,
Steve