Difficult and Beautiful

-

Some things are difficult.


Some things are beautiful.


They often overlap. 


May both the difficult and the beautiful draw you to praise the Lord.

Comments

Anonymous said…
By “difficult”, do you mean difficult for you to do? I can readily imagine many things which are difficult for which it’d be difficult to praise the Lord without a convoluted line of reasoning.

Roger Hui
10:43 AM
Andrew said…
There is a difference between praising God for something, and being drawn to praise God by something.
11:39 PM
Anonymous said…
OK, but what are "the difficult"?

Roger Hui
1:08 AM
Andrew said…
I'm not sure what you are getting at, but there has to be an element of the subjective here. 'Difficult for you' though not necessarily limited to difficult to do. Does that make sense?
3:06 PM
Anonymous said…
Suppose I were a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp. That would seem pretty difficult. I would find it pretty difficult to praise God under the circumstances.

Perhaps you meant a different “difficult”? (That’s why I asked.) Or perhaps, since I was a Jew, I would have a different God than the one you were talking about?

Roger Hui
10:33 PM
Glory said…
This fits perfectly with my husband and my present circumstance. Exposure to toxic mold in our home and workplaces made us both ill with serious autoimmune conditions. Difficult.
We sold our house (with full disclosure) with all its contents and moved to S.California where the air is dryer. Beautiful. In fact, I was just commenting to my husband the other day, while on a beautiful trail surrounded by wild flowers that, while our circumstances are hard there has been much beauty that we never would have known if things hadn't been so difficult.
10:44 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more

A Gracious Reading of Rob Bell

-
The Journey So Far The controversy rages on over Rob Bell's upcoming new book. No matter what happens now, this controversy has effectively guaranteed that 'everyone who is anyone' will need to read this book. Either to find out what is wrong and bash it, or because someone we generally disagree with also disagrees with the book so it has to be good stuff! Then, because 'everyone' is reading it, people like me will 'have to' read it to. After all, I am a pastor, and if many of my people are reading and being influenced by a book, don't I need to know what is going on as well?  Or so the reasoning will go... and perhaps I will read it, who knows. In the meantime, none of this will stop me from continuing to join this fray which I probably ought to have stayed out of in the first place. Onwards, Christian... :) The Latest Salvo The latest salvo has been fired by DeYoung  claiming that not only do we not need to talk with Bell but, more importantly, it...
Read more