Wrinkles of the City

I did a post on the photographer JR once before, but i was just checking out his latest work again and came across his new series entitled 'Wrinkles of the City'. I like his work a lot. He makes giant size versions of his pictures then posts them around a city. The photos above were taking in Shanghai.

Exceedingly great and precious promises.

"Exceeding great and precious promises." - 2 Peter 1.4

I love that sentence. It is so true. The promises of God are exceedingly great and precious. I just read something by Spurgeon related to this, and it encouraged me. He says:

"My eye must not so much be fixed upon the greatness of the mercy - that may stagger me; as upon the greatness of the promiser - that will cheer me. My soul, it is God, even thy God, God that cannot lie, who speaks to thee... He is a God unchangeable. He has not altered the things which have gone out of His mouth, nor called back one single consolatory sentence. Nor doth He lack any power; it is the God that made the heaves and the earth who has spoken thus. Nor can He fail in wisdom as to the time when He will bestow the favours, for He knoweth when it is best and when better to withhold. Therefore, seeing that it is the word of a God so true, so immutable, so powerful, so wise, I will and must believe the promise."

I've been thinking again about how nearly everything comes down to deeply and intimately knowing the character of God - I mean really knowing God. You can hear as much as you want about how to live life, or what God promises, but the thing which makes the difference in any of it, the thing which makes it sweet to obey, the thing which gives you confidence in believing His word, is actually deeply and intimately knowing God Himself. The thing which enables you to wait for His promises to be fulfilled.... and to keep waiting.... and to keep waiting..... is knowing Him; knowing He is true to His word, but also knowing that even if He slayed you, even if you had to wait forever, He is still enough for you now. He is enough. I don't always live like He is enough, but deep down, i know it is true.

"He is altogether lovely." - Song of Songs 5.16

Release

My sister, Hannah, sent me an article she had written about the Chilean miners who have been trapped under ground for the last 2 months. She wrote it a few weeks ago, and today they are finally being rescued. It's moving to watch and i found my sister's article encouraging. Here is an extract:

'Images of this mining disaster remind me of a sermon by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, preached almost 70 years ago, called How a Prisoner Waits for His Release. In this message, Bonhoeffer used the analogy of miners trapped underground as a poignant image of our lives as humans, waiting for rescue and freedom:

“They are trapped deep in the earth, dark as night, cut off alone… here in the deepest depths of the lowest shaft, there is no hope. There remains only agony and waiting for death. And what if then, a light sound is heard, like a knocking, a hammer blow, a breaking of stone!… It is really about Advent that I am speaking. Those events are precisely what happens in the drawing near of God to humankind, the coming of deliverance, the arrival of Christ. ‘Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’”

For those who are sick, lonely, or in prison, for the broken-hearted and the homeless, the words come like a glimmer of torch light in the distance, or star light over a stable in Bethlehem…“Not long now! Lift up your head! Don’t worry, your rescuer isn’t far away!”

To all who are burdened and weary from the weight of guilt, suffocating in the darkness of shame and unable to find a way out, the call comes. “There is a knock at the door. Don’t you hear it? It will guide you through all your rubble, the stoniness of your heart. That doesn’t happen quickly, but it comes. Christ breaks his way through to you, to your heart.”'

Stand and wait

"...God doth not need either man's work or his own gifts: who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. (...) They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton, On his Blindness

I read the above quote recently, via a friend of mine. I like it.

All my springs are in You.

'Singers and dancers alike say, "All my springs are in You."' - Psalm 87

I like this verse. I reckon it applies to more than just singers and dancers too. At least i want it to. I want all my springs to be in Him. All that flows from me to come from Him. Whether it's flowing into a song, or a dance, or some other creative thing... or whether it's just the simple things i say or do; I want all my springs to be in Him.