The Artist Must Die: Teach me to number my days, Oh God.

Oct 12, 2008

Teach me to number my days, Oh God.

Recently I went to the doctor for a little bump on my back... The nurse practitioner took two biopsies and I am supposed to hear this week what is going on... No biggie, right? I mean, only 4% of all skin lesions are bad cancers and out of those around 98% are cured... No sweat, right?

Well... I am alone a lot and sometimes I turn to "Uncle Google" for advice and instead I get scared or obsessed. I know others who have waited for biopsy results with great trepidation as well... it's the NOT knowing that is so hard... My imagination is recounting every memory of every sunburn and I am inspecting every mole and dot on my body... I am thinking down every future path that my brain can possibly imagine... I mean I have two kids and one is only 6 months old... There is no way this could be "it", right? Tell me that I am out of my mind and overreacting...

I have told only very few people and when I said it they couldn't hide their concern... they looked like they were sick for a moment and then they tried to cheer me up...

Anyway... I haven't felt like doing a lot... I have definitely slowed down... I am not so hurried or worried about stuff I can't control... like stock markets, politics, or petty disagreements...

I wish everyone had a "mortality awareness" point in their lives... This whole thing has really affected me in some positive ways...

I am so much more content to sit and rock my babies...
I am so much more willing to sit in the floor and play with Kyson's trains...
I don't care about what others think so much... I am finding more purpose, pleasure,and patience in my days...

I have no diagnosis whatsoever and yet my heart is grateful for this wake up call...
I would like to stay in this posture of total and absolute trust in Him no matter what the results say...

Teach me to number my Days, Oh God...

1 comment:

AnonymousOctober 14, 2008 at 8:19 AM
praying
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Some Warnings to the Christian Artist

"However, there are dangers in exercising one's artistic creativity. One danger is idolatry. the worship of the work of one's own hands, Another is jealousy of other, perhaps more talented or more successful artists, A third is the prostitution of one's artistic talents in the service of evil causes. Yet another is the falsification of artistic visions received from God, This danger is unavoidable in our sin-perverted world, as any godly writer or artist will instantly admit. Because literature and art can be so influential in society. Christian writers and artists must take very seriously the Scriptural admonition to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" as God is "working out His good pleasure in us" (Phil. 2:12-133. Christian writers and artists also should bear in mind that their work is in many respects of an instructive or teaching nature, The writer or artist as teacher `~ill be judged more strictly' by God (James 3:1). Lastly. Christian literature and art should "bless our Lord's holy name with all that is within" the artist (Ps. 103:1). Our creativity must glorify our Creator (Rev.t:1 1). To glorify our wonderful Lord we must forsake mere "Christian utility" aimed at mere entertainment. How sad that Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Ltr .Francis Schaeffer and a talented painter and film maker, could rightly accuse today's Christians of "addiction to mediocrity' and shoddiness in craftsmanship in the arts, This cannot glorify our Creator (Rev. 4:11)."

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DYING TO SELF

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take in all in patient, loving silence.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance; when you stand face-to- face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility-and endure it as Jesus endured.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

Are you dead yet? In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT !

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be his love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He must have the right to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.