Oswald Chambers
After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there ... Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him.
posted by Timothy @ 7:01 AM
5 Comments:
That is so good.
his words are timeless
Hm?
What an utterly depressing, bleak little piece of writing. Why can't "things as they are" be beautiful, poetic, thrilling?
Is your life correctly in the drab drudgery of the valley? Poor sinner, gotta live in the valley, nowhere to go.
Frightening. Such a shitty way to live. The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.
"But I know the guilt is real, I feel it."
Feelings are not knowledge. An emotion is an automatic response, an automatic effect of your values. An effect, not cause. A feeling will never offer you a solution, or tell you right from wrong. They only represent your relationship to some thing.
Imagine receiving a phone call that your mother or father had died. After mourning for a couple days, you learn they're not actually dead, but alive and well.
What about all the emotional pain you went through? Was it real? Were you wrong to feel it, since it was based on a falsehood?
The emotion was based on an invalid premise. While you cannot select the emotion, you can select the correct premise.
Emotions proceed automatically from our premises. There is no necessary clash between reason and emotion, provided their relationship is understood. A rational person knows--or works to discover--the source of their emotions, the premises from which they arise. If their premises are wrong, they correct them.
If you believe yourself born guilty of a sin you didn't commit, and believe yourself and all of mankind must slog through the drab valley, you'll produce the appropriate self-loathing and depression. Are these feelings evidence of your supposedly pitifully inept human condition?
They're evidence of the minds ability to direct its thoughts, and to feel strongly and wrongly. But evidence of humanities helplessness? Nope, only yours.
Never act on an emotion you don't understand. When appraising a situation, know why you react how you do, and whether you are right.
Emotions are not your enemies, they are your means of enjoying life. But they are not your guide; the guide is your mind. This relationship cannot be reversed, however. If a man takes his emotions as the cause and his mind as their passive effect, if he is guided by his emotions and uses his mind only to rationalize or justify them somehow—then he is acting immorally, he is condemning himself to misery, failure, defeat, and he will achieve nothing but destruction—his own and that of others.
Don't buy the guilt trip. Man can be heroic, things (the real things) can be beautiful and thrilling, and you can be free of any unearned guilt.
I tend to disagree with Stephen, it is not guilt, but love and devotion that is the motivation, what a great peice of writing. Guilt is forgiven, grace is accepted, and love is born.
Any SLT students like to comment on my brother's comment?
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