God is the Strength of My Heart

At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it. (from The Brothers Karamazov)

Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise. (Psalm 51:15-17)

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26)

The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness... (Exodus 34:6)

No Promise But Jesus

The Bible is full of promises. Promises we think we can cut out and use like coupons, handing them up to God like we can just exchange them for all that will fill our deep, longing hearts. And oh, our confusion when we find it doesn't work that way! 

God keeps his promises. Without doubt, he is faithful. But he will not be conjured. He doesn't come when we ring the right bell. His time and his ways are inscrutable; past finding out. We cannot know how or when he will work, and in a world of time, that fact in essence renders a whole Bible full of promises useless as coupons. 

Martha of Bethany learned this. She had sent Jesus word: "Lord, the one you love is sick." When Jesus came to her, too late to save her brother from death, she reminded him of what he could have done.  She knew - not just believed - that he had the power to save Lazarus from dying. 

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

 There was no confession like this one in all Jesus' days on earth. Martha, the one Jesus rebuked - not sweet, worshipping Mary - knew Jesus as the Son of God and said it plainly. She believed that He was able to not only cure Lazarus' sickness, but even to raise him from the dead. Her faith was straightforward and practical. She was sure of what Jesus could do, yet she had learned not to presume, not to try to guess what he would do.

There is only one promise for us, just as there was for Martha, and that is who God is: “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."

Let us hold fast to him, the resurrection and the life. Let us fling ourselves wholesale on him, and risk all that we are and hope for on who he is, that One Who Cannot Lie. What he has for us must be better than we would choose for ourselves. It must.

If the only home I hope for is the grave,
if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,
if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’
and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’
where then is my hope—
who can see any hope for me?
Will it go down to the gates of death?
Will we descend together into the dust?” (Job 17:13-16)

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. (Psalm 143:8)

"No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame..." (Psalm 25:3)

I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5)

Heard

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit--fruit that will last--and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. (John 15:16)

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

He fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39)

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. (Hebrews 5:7)

So why don't we receive everything we ask for? Even Jesus' cup was not taken from him. But his prayer was answered, after all. He prayed that his father's will would be done, and it was. On an earth that had been sold into the hand of Satan - God's will was done, and the enemy defeated on his own territory.

Jesus, praying, bowed his will to God, and God's will was done through him, on earth just as it is in heaven.

This is our great privilege - not to beg God, nor to conjure his power on our own behalf, but to bend ourselves to him, and allow his will to be done for us, and through us, for our own broken world. This is the way that God's will and his love make their way into a world like ours. This is the way that the Master we have chosen regains the right to work for us and in us and through us. He longs to give good, and our bent will is the means through which he may reach us, and through us, the world we belong to.

The Hurt and the Healer

The trouble with us is not simply that we are sinners, but that we are sinners with God-hearts and God-desires. We have sometime known the perfection of fellowship, and we are filled with longing for it, but we are always stumbling over self and sin, and these overcome us. We long to trust and be trusted, but we are faithless and unfaithful. We cannot be believed. What a cruel trap we find ourselves caught in!

There is real consolation in Jesus. Emmanuel. God-with-us.

It isn't his power or even his vastness that call out worship from our hearts; the beauty of the Man from Galilee is that he knows, as no God has ever known, our pain and our brokenness. He, like us, is too-soon tired. He bleeds. He knows first-hand those peculiarly human agonies - being misjudged and misunderstood, fear and dread, humiliation, betrayal, rejection.

See him as he goes, in dusty sandals, to the house of his friends on the outskirts of the city. To them he has given, and from them he has received - true friends, they. Mary has sat at his feet. Martha has worked long and hard to serve him and the guests that came with him. If anyone knows who Jesus really is, surely it is these two. If there is love and trust in friendship, surely he will find it at their house in Bethany. Their brother Lazarus is dead now, but he too has been a friend. The Scripture says it, straight up: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus".

The practical Martha is there to meet him as he comes, too late to save her brother. Lazarus is already in the grave, and she is full of grief. She squashes the reproach in her heart, but she can't help wondering: why hasn't Jesus come in time? He, the great Healer, was surely able to cure Lazarus. He has healed so many others.

Mary can't bring herself to meet her friend. She has listened to him, trusted him, loved him. She sent him word that Lazarus was sick; she didn't doubt that he would come. But her brother lies in the grave, and Jesus is there too late. When he finds her, she is inconsolable. She stops short of blame, but she voices her bewilderment, weeping: if Jesus had but come - !

It's enough to make God cry: the disappointment and the hurt of dear friends, and the pain of being misunderstood. Jesus himself weeps. God cries hot, bitter, human tears. He can raise Lazarus from the grave, but he is not above the pain of a friend's reproach.

Now watch him as he goes to Gethsemane. His closest friends go with him, eleven men - once twelve - who have been with him constantly for three full years. They have left livelihood and family to follow him, and he has watched them go from amazed wonder to able helpers. He leaves eight of them to watch, then goes further in to the garden with those closest to him - Peter, James, and John. They have seen him full of glory, transfigured in the presence of Moses and Elijah. If anyone knows who he is and why he has come, it is these three. The Man of Sorrows knows that the cross is his alone, but surely these three closest men will support him as he prepares his heart for the difficulty to come.

He asks them to pray. They have promised to die with him; surely friends such as these will share his suffering as far as they are allowed. He is overwhelmed with the sorrow and dread of what awaits him; surely they will bear him up in prayer.

They fall asleep. He wakes them up, reminding them of the night's urgency. He has told them plainly of his coming death. Again, they sleep, and Jesus is alone in his darkest midnight. Alone, he cries to God. Blood and sweat mingle and fall. Alone, he hears the answer: No. Alone, he bends his will and weeps.

Emmanuel. God-with-us. He can heal disease. He can forgive sin. He can even raise the dead. But he knows the longing of the human heart to depend on its fellow, and the sting of disappointment and betrayal. He knows the wrenching pain of being the one to let down a friend; he knows what it feels like to be mistrusted.

Some day, we will love as God loves. We will give selflessly, trust implicitly, and be worthy of the trust of others. We will know unbroken friendship and fellowship. Until then, we walk the road that Jesus walked. Why doesn't God rescue us? Why must we learn amid such pain? He who knows first-hand the brokenness of humanity, and the trap we find ourselves in - why does he consent to our hurt and our frustration?

We are too much like children, ever quick to believe the lie that power is everything, and that it works like magic - with the muttering of words or the wave of a wand. Power is great, but it pales before the greatness of love, which enables its bearer to endure the ache of disappointing and and being disappointed. We will, some bright day, know as we are known. Think of it: we will know God as he knows us. We will each know the other through the fellowship of suffering. God knows our hurt; now we, in our hurt, are learning how to choose the beauty of his anyway-love.

If Jesus did not suffer; if he did not know our brokenness, our common ache, our bleeding - how could we ever trust him? If we do not love through suffering, how could we ever know the greatness of that Heart of Love that bends itself to bear our hurt?

Jesus. Emmanuel. God-with-us. Only he who suffered as we suffer is able to console.

He is the Faithful God

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. (Deuteronomy 7:9)

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5)

In Its Time Swiftly

There is nothing for us but to steadfastly - even stubbornly - believe that God is able and willing to make up to us every step of our way in the darkness, every anxious dreadful heartbeat, every lingering ache...and when we are not able to feel that it is true that He is always and in every thing for us, we must act upon it anyway. We who have claimed to be loved by the Great God of the universe - what choice have we but to risk all on Him?

...the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of sorrow will end.
Then all your people will be righteous
and they will possess the land forever.
They are the shoot I have planted,
the work of my hands,
for the display of my splendor.
The least of you will become a thousand,
the smallest a mighty nation.
I am the Lord;
in its time I will do this swiftly. (Isaiah 60:20-22)

 

A Way To See In The Dark (Jason Gray)

Here I am
Begging for certainty again
But simple trust
Is what you're asking me to give
If I am saved
You tell me it will not be by sight
So when I pray
I'll close my eyes, I'll close my eyes
I'll reach for your hand in the night
When the shadows swallow the light
'Cause I'm giving up, giving in
Once again a childlike faith
Is my only way
To see in the dark
The question mark
Hung at the end of every fear
Is answered by
The promise that you are with me here
And that's all I've got
When the lights go out and I lose my way
So I'll close my eyes
I won't be afraid, I won't be afraid

When Hope Looks Lost

 Sometimes I am filled with a great weariness. There is, all around, brokenness and emptiness, and my own dissatisfaction and my gaping failure, and the yet-unfulfilled promises of God. My despair is the more deep because my hope is high, and I hope still, but I am weary with the wait, and hope's joy has gone out into the vast dim.

But I have seen prayer answered unexpectedly this week - a small, pale prayer offered despondently, then answered swift and sure - and some winged thing in me has got to fluttering again.

The Son of God hung on the cross, and the Father had his hands in his pockets, so it seemed. Even the Messiah was not out of the enemy’s reach. Or was he?
See, it was in this moment of disarray — in this Chaos of chaos — that everything “looked” destroyed and turned upside down. But it was here, by all visible accounts, when things were the most over, that in fact they were the most not.
It appeared evil had won. That God was dead. That his enemies triumphed. But no.
It was in his dying, when our hope looked lost, that Jesus was actually securing it. It was when darkness covered the land, over against the Son’s forsaken cries, that light began to dawn and the Father realized his eternal purpose for the world. Beyond what it seemed, beyond what the circumstances would suggest, God was the one in triumph. Sunday morning made it sure.
So just when we thought he’d be gone forever, he was actually lifted up as the one who would never leave us, nor forsake us — the one who would say, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20)
- from Ten Thousand Things We Can't See, by Jonathan Parnell

I keep waiting, child that I am, for my own personal Messiah to come riding in on his white horse and sweep me up in glorious triumph and vindicate me...and, after all, preserve my pride. But the truth is this: I haven't bargained for the kind of life that is held firmly in hand. I "have bargained," with Jim Elliot, "for a cross". And after all, I do want a life that lifts up Christ, not me. I do want to follow the Man of Sorrows. I want to bend myself down before him, to kiss his lovely feet.

One Sabbath morning, I preached from the text, “My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?” and though I did not say so, yet I preached my own experience. I heard my own chains clank while I tried to preach to my fellow-prisoners in the dark; but I could not tell why I was brought into such an awful horror of darkness, for which I condemned myself.
On the following Monday evening, a man came to see me who bore all the marks of despair upon his countenance. His hair seemed to stand up right, and his eyes were ready to start from their sockets. He said to me, after a little parleying, “I never before, in my life, heard any man speak who seemed to know my heart. Mine is a terrible case; but on Sunday morning you painted me to the life, and preached as if you had been inside my soul.”
By God’s grace I saved that man from suicide, and led him into gospel light and liberty; but I know I could not have done it if I had not myself been confined in the dungeon in which he lay.
I tell you the story, brethren, because you sometimes may not understand your own experience, and the perfect people may condemn you for having it; but what know they of God’s servants? You and I have to suffer much for the sake of the people of our charge...
You may be in Egyptian darkness, and you may wonder why such a horror chills your marrow; but you may be altogether in the pursuit of your calling, and be led of the Spirit to a position of sympathy with desponding minds. (Charles Spurgeon, - from An All Round Ministry)

But what of all the "hurrying, eager longing" that will not be stilled? What of all my deep heart hurt? Who will guide me? Where shall I find a vision?

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:6-11)

There is a God who hears. He is there and he is not silent. He knows this heart of mine, and he could change it if he chose.

Desire is not merely a simple wish; it is a deep seated craving; an intense longing, for attainment. In the realm of spiritual affairs, it is an important adjunct to prayer. So important is it, that one might say, almost, that desire is an absolute essential of prayer. Desire precedes prayer, accompanies it, is followed by it. Desire goes before prayer, and by it, created and intensified. Prayer is the oral expression of desire. If prayer is asking God for something, then prayer must be expressed. Prayer comes out into the open. Desire is silent. Prayer is heard; desire, unheard. The deeper the desire, the stronger the prayer. Without desire, prayer is a meaningless mumble of words. Such perfunctory, formal praying, with no heart, no feeling, no real desire accompanying it, is to be shunned like a pestilence. Its exercise is a waste of precious time, and from it, no real blessing accrues.
A sense of need creates or should create, earnest desire. The stronger the sense of need, before God, the greater should be the desire, the more earnest the praying. The "poor in spirit" are eminently competent to pray.
Hunger is an active sense of physical need. It prompts the request for bread. In like manner, the inward consciousness of spiritual need creates desire, and desire breaks forth in prayer. Desire is an inward longing for something of which we are not possessed, of which we stand in need -- something which God has promised, and which may be secured by an earnest supplication of His throne of grace. (E. M. Bounds)

I will seek the glory of One whose name is Merciful and True. I will offer him my aching wish for direction and warmth and belonging. I will pour out before him all my emptiness and confused desire, and he will turn it into a prayer. I will turn to him in frantic moments, and I will seek him in my bewildered wanting, and I will make this heart-gap his, and all my hurt and hope will become supplication and praise.

"...And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings." (Gerard Manley Hopkins) 

Let Your Love Be My Companion

“What we have to do is love these people who hate us—love them, pray for them. These people are wounded people who have hate in their hearts. They need forgiveness. They need the Lord. That is the answer we must give.” (Corrie Ten Boom)

 This is what I am hungry for.

Jesus-love doesn't come easy. I see it, and long for it, and reach for it - but it eludes me. It seems so often to glimmer through the mists of my tired thoughts - just beyond my grasp, until I reach for it. Then it recedes into the gloom, and I am left full of indignation and hurt pride and impotent rage.

Why? Where does the strength for this love come from? Why don't I have it? Why doesn't God just give it?

Maybe because he knows my deceitful heart, so willing to take credit for what comes easy. The truth he brings me back to, again and again, is that I can't do this. I can't love for wanting to. I can't forgive in my own power. He must give me this strength.

In Your justice and Your mercy

Heaven walked the broken road

Here to fight this sinner's battle

Here to make my fall Your own

Turn my eyes to see Your face

As all my fears surrender

Hold my heart within this grace

Where burden turns to wonder

I will fight to follow

I will fight for love

Throw my life forever

To the triumph of the Son

Let Your love be my companion

In the war against my pride

Long to break all vain obsession

Till You're all that I desire

Turn my eyes to see Your face

As all my fears surrender

Hold my heart within this grace

Where burden turns to wonder

I will fight to follow

I will fight for love

Throw my life forever

To the triumph of the Son

And I know Your love has won it all

You took the fall

To embrace my sorrows

I know You took the fight

You came and died but the grave was borrowed

I know You stood again

So I can stand with a life to follow

In the light of Your name

Turn my eyes to see Your face

As all my fears surrender

Hold my heart within this grace

Where burden turns to wonder

I will fight to follow

I will fight for love

Throw my life forever

To the triumph of the Son

And I know Your love has won it all

You took the fall

To embrace my sorrows

I know You took the fight

You came and died but the grave was borrowed

I know You stood again

So I can stand with a life to follow

In the light of Your name

I Have Given Them the Glory

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:22-27)

There are some startling truths in this prayer of Jesus:
     Jesus has given us the glory that God gave him. It is a glory we can't see. Yet.
     God loves us the way he loves Jesus. Jesus has asked God to let us have that love.

This had me asking God when he would answer Jesus' prayer. And then I realized that perhaps he has answered it already.

I have given them the glory that you gave me...that they may be brought to complete unity. 
Seen the visible church lately? It doesn't look like complete unity. But there is something you can't see. That's the invisible cord that draws all that love Jesus. They may never know each other, and if they do, they might be distracted by selfish, petty squabbles, but one thing sets them all apart and binds them together and draws them in to a single center: love for the Man of Sorrows.

That the love you have for me may be in them... 
Do we love Jesus? These days I often feel my lack of love. I am not enough drawn to the One who loved me. I am dull and slow and dim. Ah, dear, searching God who tries hearts. He sees below the bent and broken self, deep down to that part which will not be burnt off in fire. He sees the love that beats beneath. He knows all about our fears, our weakness, our selfishness, and he knows the willingness, the wanting to see and know and honor the One he has given and the One we have chosen. It's true that I am often blind to his glory, but when I am shaken and lesser loves fall, I am coming to know that there is a real and unshaken love for Jesus deep in my heart. What is love? It is longing. It is admiration. It is the desire to give good. All these I find even in my own dark self. They are too slow, too dull, too cold; but they do not waver when all else falls loose.

Love is not all comfort and warmth; it can break your heart. Even in me, there is an inexorable love for the Crucified One. Enough to break me in two.

Yet I will praise him.

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 43:5)

Lord Jesus, come hope or heartbreak, I love you. Your prayer is answered in me. In my heart is love that comes from our Father; love that seeks you and takes pleasure in you and longs to please you - but I would love you better. Open my eyes to see a little of your glory. Let me know your goodness and your beauty and your truth. And let me know, a little more, the Father's love for me.

He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied... (Isaiah 53:11)

Glory to Be Helpless

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. (Romans 7:18)

"Let us receive this as the first great lesson of the spiritual life: 'It is impossible for me, my God; let there be an end of the flesh and all its powers, an end of self, and let it be my glory to be helpless.'" (Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender)

I have a student - Robert, who greets me with a long list of questions every class. I love his questions, and he is eager and earnest, but he is always jumping ahead of the lesson, worrying that he doesn't understand concepts and vocabulary that I haven't taught yet. He is anxious to figure it all out and understand where the things he is learning fit in among all the things he doesn't yet know. I am always reminding him that learning is a process, and the learner is necessarily left hanging between what he knows well and what he has not yet learned. It is overwhelming, especially in the beginning, to have such a body of knowledge that is yet incomprehensible, but there is no escaping that reality. 

One of the things I struggle with the most is not knowing what God is doing, not knowing what I should be doing. I am confused about so many things. It is frustrating to feel that I am thrashing about in the dark, trying so hard and seemingly getting nowhere. It feels like my efforts are wasted and my energies misdirected, and nothing is more discouraging than feeling like I have pushed myself right to the edge of what I can handle only to realize that it wasn't necessary, or I exerted myself in the wrong direction after all. I am anxious to learn my lessons and figure out what God is teaching me, and I keep looking for the moral in all of this. But it eludes me.

It seems I am just like Robert. We both hate the feeling of helplessness that learning gives us. It is unnerving to not know.

But God allows me to be helpless, not knowing. He is the one working good in my life. It is not up to me to figure out what is right and do it. I desire His way. I long to be all that He has planned me to be - but I lack both the understanding and the ability. So often I find myself trying to love, trying to give, in my own strength. It always fails, and I am left despairing. Only God can give this power.

Jesus replied, "What is impossible with man is possible with God." (Luke 18:27)

Peter knew this problem. He was all flame and promise, but he failed when it seemed most important. It must have seemed like the end to him. He had promised to die with Jesus, but instead he pretended not to know him in order to save his own skin. Andrew Murray says:

Peter denied his Lord thrice, and then the Lord looked upon him; and that look of Jesus broke the heart of Peter, and all at once there opened up before him the terrible sin that he had committed, the terrible failure that had come, and the depth into which he had fallen, and "Peter went out and wept bitterly."
Oh! who can tell what that repentance must have been? During the following hours of that night, and the next day, when he saw Christ crucified and buried, and the next day, the Sabbath-oh, in what hopeless despair and shame he must have spent that day!
"My Lord is gone, my hope is gone, and I denied my Lord. After that life of love, after that blessed fellowship of three years, I denied my Lord. God have mercy upon me!"
I do not think we can realize into what a depth of humiliation Peter sank then. But that was the turningpoint and the change; and on the first day of the week Christ was seen of Peter, and in the evening He met him with the others. Later on at the Lake of Galilee He asked him: "Lovest thou me?" until Peter was made sad by the thought that the Lord reminded him of having denied Him thrice; and said in sorrow, but in uprightness:
"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."
...You know wherein Peter's failings lay. When he said to Christ, in effect: "Thou never canst suffer; it cannot be" - it showed he had not a conception of what it was to pass through death into life. Christ said: "Deny thyself," and in spite of that he denied his Lord. When Christ warned him: "Thou shalt deny me," and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood what there was in himself. But when I read his epistle and hear him say: "If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you," then I say that it is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.
I read again how he says: "Hereunto ye are called, to suffer, even as Christ suffered." I understand what a change had come over Peter. Instead of denying Christ, he found joy and pleasure in having self denied and crucified and given up to the death. And therefore it is in the Acts we read that, when he was called before the Council, he could boldly say: "We must obey God rather than men," and that he could return with the other disciples and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christs name.
You remember his self-exaltation; but now he has found out that "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is in the sight of God of great price." Again he tells us to be "subject one to another, and be clothed with humility."
Dear friend, I beseech you, look at Peter utterly changed-the self-pleasing, the self-trusting, the self-seeking Peter, full of sin, continually getting into trouble, foolish and impetuous, but now filled with the Spirit and the life of Jesus. Christ had done it for him by the Holy Ghost.
And now, what is my object in having thus very briefly pointed to the story of Peter? That story must be the history of every believer who is really to be made a blessing by God.
(Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender)

What will make this change in me? God's Spirit, through God's Word. He is teaching me. I cannot effect my own change, but as I wash myself in the truth of His words, I will be changed. Someday, to me and Robert both, it will make sense.

"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts." (Winston Churchill)