To do during COVID-19 or any other crisis or any other normal time: Love God with all I've got. Love every person that crosses my path. Love the people I don't like and who don't like me. Plead for God's will to be done here as if this were heaven. Act and speak accordingly.
Grace and peace to you…
dw
OUR GREATEST DANGER is not our sins but our indifference. We must be in love with God. It is not so much to change what we are doing, but our intention, our motive.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 29). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.
What I do,
What I intend to do,
And how I feel about it
(I keep thinking)
Are distinct,
Separate, in fact,
And controllable,
(I keep telling myself)
Their interactions civil
And honorable
To any casual observer
(I keep believing)
Until the slightest whisper of a feeling
Changes my mind and my actions
Forever
dw
Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com
Jesus didn’t say: Figure me out;
He said – Follow me.He didn’t say: Get your doctrine right;
He said – Judge not.He didn’t say: Puzzle out the End Times;
He said – Stay awake.He didn’t say: Perfect yourselves;
He said – Love me with all your heart.He didn’t say: Develop your vision for ministry;
He said – Love your neighbor.He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
the meek,
those who mourn,
who seek peace,
who hunger and thirst for the world to be right with God,
who are judged and ridiculed for doing so.He said those things – that’s what He said.
dw
Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi (AmazonClassics Edition) (p. 74). Kindle Edition.
My hunger for knowledge about God,
my obsession with doing what was right,
what would leave me blameless
before any accuser,
even God himself
(myself another Job),
all but devoured my chance,
my only chance,
to experience ‘the grace,
the beauty, the poetry’
of the Majestic River
of Life.
I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Revelation 2:3-4Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 88055-88057). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Grace and peace to you…
dw
Copyright © 2020, becomingflame.com
Freedom is perfect when no other love can impede our desire to love God.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope
From John’s gospel, Chapter 8:
31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Locations 79992-79998). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Grace and peace and freedom to you…
dw
becoming flame 