Trust Him to Keep

i am simply posting the devotion from the 28th from my book Opened Treasures by Francis Ridley Havergal. i am continuing to chew on the profound truths of this excellent entry. (bolds and italics in the entry are mine...also, remember that she was English, so some words may be spelled differently).

June 28

Our Lips For Him

The lips of the righteous feed many...The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable.

   Proverbs 10:21, 32

The days are past forever when we said, "Our lips are our own." Now we know that they are not our own. And yet how many of my readers often have the miserable consciousness that they have "spoken unadvisedly with their lips!" How many pray, "Keep the door of my lips," when the very last thing they think of expecting is that they will be kept! They deliberately make up their minds that hasty word, or foolish words, or exaggerated words, according to their respective temptations, must and will slip out of that door, and that it can't be helped. The extent of the real meaning of their prayer was merely that not quite so many might slip out. As their faith went no farther, the answer went no farther, and so the door was not kept. Do let us look the matter straight in the face. Either we have committed our lips to our Lord, or we have not. This question must be settled first. If not, oh, do not let another hour pass! Take them to Jesus, and ask Him to take them. But when you have committed them to Him, it comes to this--is He able or is He not able to keep that which you have committed to Him? If He is not able, of course you may as well give up at once, for your own experience has abundantly proved that you are not able, so there is no help for you. But if He is able--nay, thank God there is no if on this side!--say, rather, as He is able, where was this inevitable necessity of perpetual failure? You have been fancying yourself virtually doomed and fated to it, and therefore you have gone on in it, while all the time His arm was not shortened that it could not save, but you have been limiting the Holy One of Israel. Honestly, now, have you trusted Him to keep your lips this day? Trust necessarily implies expectation that what we have intrusted will be kept. If you have not expected Him to keep, you have not trusted. You may have tried and tried very hard, but you have not trusted, and therefore you have not been kept and your lips have been the snare of your soul (Proverbs 18:7).

I have been very challenged by this, and not just with my lips. What other things have i prayed for Him to 'keep', but not really believing He DOES keep them completely. 

What are your thoughts on this?



Aiming for...

Recently i have been thinking about what i am aiming for. There are many things i do, and sometimes it seems that none of them are done well. Can you relate?

i blog. i love to write. but do you think i can get on here and post as often as i would like? No. Four children keep me busy. Yet, i find i long to write. Maybe i entered the blogosphere a bit too early and with ambitions that were set too high. So, in anonymity i will stay, thankful for the ones that do read what i write, even though i don't do it often enough =)

i am a mom. There are plenty of times that i feel like i don't do this well, because i have been chasing after an image of a perfect mom that does not exist. i do not own year-passes to any museums. i don't do super-mom crafts at home with my cheribs, because i generally don't have the patience to do it. But i DO love them, snuggle with them, dance with them, laugh and cry with them, let them dig in the back of the yard, and buy venus flytraps. Somehow, that seems to be enough for them, so why does it not seem enough according to society? It is time to scale back and get back to the basics. But that is another post!

i am also a wife, sister, friend, daughter, business owner, etc...

Within each of these roles i was aiming to be the best (in my own strength, i think) and feeling like i was falling short. Unfortunately i am a recovering Perfectionist. If you are one, you know that you want to do everything perfectly, and if you can't do it with perfection, you just don't do it (you should see my kitchen...um, yeah). What to do?

STOP! Stop being perfectionistic. Stop depending on my own ability! i heard something recently that really made me think...What am i aiming for? To be approved of by men? To be accepted by everyone? To be the best? And what is my motivation? ouch.

I have made a turn. The Holy Spirit has really been convicting me, and i know now that i need to AIM TO GIVE GOD GLORY IN ANY AND EVERY SITUATION. To revisit the verse about doing all to the glory of God...

So no matter what role i am in, my goal is to bring glory to my Lord and Saviour =)