In Yoke

" …And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side. ..." Mark 6: 45-52. We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite.   We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end. What is my dream of God's purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and un-perplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process--that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is th...

It is permissible to take life's blessings with both hands provided thou dost know thyself prepared in the opposite event to take them just as gladly. This applies to food and friends and kindred, to anything God gives and takes away. -Meister Eckhart In order to live in freedom, we must learn to accept a temporary disappointment, if necessary, when it is for our permanent well-being. Sometimes, when we want to eat something that appeals to us, or when we want to eat a little more than is necessary, we can't help feeling disappointment as we push away from the table. We cannot help thinking that we could as well have stayed on for five more minutes of pleasure, forgetting that it would probably be followed by five hours of stomachache at night. The right time to get up from the meal is when we want just a little more. This is real artistry, real gourmet judgment: when we find that everything is so good that we would like to have one more helping, we get up and walk away. ~Easwa...

*At my church several of our well intentioned staff members have used the above term to describe times when something good happens in a group in which they have been leading or participating...or it will be used as a salutation. I have found it quite amusing that our "leaders" describe their experience with the Spirit in this way. For I believe that God has "shown up" since "in the beginning"--since the earth and fullness thereof, was created. After all, way down through the centuries, when Moses the great leader of Israel asked what is His name--the response came back in the form of the Tetragrammaton, *YHWH*..."I am that I am." My belief is that we are the ones who must make the effort to "show up"! "The Great I Am"--has been showing up every second of every day since before there were human beings on the planet who could even have expectations. I suppose the expectation that I should be tilted to the Knowledge that He li...