Wilkerson: Death & Wisdom

David Wilkerson, author of The Cross and the Switchblade and founder of Teen Challenge and World Challenge, died in a car crash last night.

A friend sent me a link to Rev. Wilkerson's blog and I found his post yesterday, and particularly the day before (April 26) a strong encouragement to persevere in all areas of my life but particularly my faith--especially right now in this stressful time at the end of a hectic semester, and as I am faced with my own shortcomings and failings.  It strikes me too, that his last post spoke of trusting God and finding hope in Him even when facing "the valley of the shadow of death" and that "one day it will all make sense."

I encourage you to peruse his blog and read wisdom from a godly man who lived out the gospel he preached!

http://davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com/

blurred and weary

The bland gray of monotonous days
trudging along with the heaviness of tired self,
accelerated by challenge of work upon work,
the heavy murmur of failure in disquiet ears.

Singing birds give a pretense of life.
But Spring has regressed,
sunk back into grey, chill Winter,
and any green is lost
beneath dirty snow.



Friday's darkness descends
and heavy clouds obscure all light.
What suffering, O what torment!
We hold our breath in somber expectation.

Glorious dawn of Sunday--
O what joy, O what hope!
People across all the nations
join in celebrating, rejoicing;
we recall life is so much greater than us.



Torrents of April rain
whisper hope of an eventual Spring
while dismal must-piles
demand focus of a weary brain.

O Great God, let there be hope in me
as in the larking, light-hearted air-minstrels;
let there be joy and trust in me
as in the flow'ring boughs.
And let me bring you glory with each trudging day that comes.


[amen]

"For these seeds to come to life, first they must die"

Lately I've been feeling somewhat as though I am losing control of my life.  Likely it's a good thing, albeit scary, and I found this reminder from Elisabeth Elliot encouraging on the importance of letting go of what God has given us and trusting Him:

There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go.  At the precise moment where we refuse, growth stops.  If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver meant it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul....

The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of—if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory.

....The lesson of the seed had not been fully learned.  There must be relinquishment.  There is no way around it.  The seed does not "know" what will happen.  It only knows what is happening—the falling, the darkness, the dying....

We are given the chance to trust Him when He says to us, "...If any man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self."

When will we find it? we ask.  The answer is, Trust Me.
How will we find it? The answer again is, Trust Me.
Why must I let myself be lost? we persist.  The answer is, Look at the acorn and trust Me.

Or to quote a line of a Jon Foreman song,

For these seeds to come to life
First they must die.