Good morning! May you taste and see that the Lord is good this weekend.

Westminster Books has a good deal on the excellent Two Ways To Live.
Today’s Kindle deals include quite a number of academic books and classics.
(Yesterday on the blog: Set Loose in a Mud Pit)
While Waiting for Flight 6072
Andrée Seu Peterson writes about redeeming the time spent waiting for a flight.
Refreshed In Chains
“The Bible is far from barren prose on ancient parchment. Instead it ripples with life, it rises and falls with the breath of God, it ebbs and flows as the Spirit wields it with surgical precision.” So says, and proves, Chris Thomas.
The Surprising Gift of A Child’s Prayer
It’s simple and sweet, this one.
The People Who Talk about Death
“We are the people who talk about death. Though I doubt many of us think of Christianity that way. Our whole message centres on death: a single death and the defeat of Death through it.”
How to Be Less Thankful
Here’s a backward look at Thanksgiving. “If you’ve had enough of the thanksgiving police bullying you into a humble posture, this article is for you. Read on for some tried and true methods for growing in thanklessness.”
Sorrowful Yet Always Rejoicing
It’s good to be reminded of this. “We will be afflicted, we will be perplexed, we will be persecuted, we will be struck down, but we will not be crushed, we will not be driven to despair, we will not be forsaken, and we will not be destroyed. For although this treasure of the gloriousness of Christ is in weak jars of clay, it is to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us…”
Cleo Smith and the Failure of Secular Morality
“On the morning of Wednesday, November 3rd, Australia breathed a sigh of relief. Four-year-old Cleo Smith—who mysteriously went missing from her family’s tent 18 days earlier—was found alive well. She was found in the house of a man named Terrance Darrell Kelly, who has since been charged with kidnapping Cleo.” Akos Balogh says “Everyone agrees that kidnapping Cleo was an evil action” but asks, “can a secular approach to life give a compelling explanation of why it was wrong?”
Flashback: Why Christian Kids Leave the Faith
What do you consider the most prominent factors to explain why people abandon their childhood faith?

God does not send us two classes of providences—one good and one evil. All are good. —J.R. Miller

C.S. Lewis famously said that while God whispers to us in our pleasures, he shouts to us in our pains. And, indeed, as we pass through trials and afflictions we find that God speaks his truths to us in fresh and encouraging ways. And then it’s also true that we tend not to appreciate our pleasures until they are contrasted by pains—and that’s the point of this lovely quote by J.R. Miller which I trust you’ll enjoy reading and reflecting upon.

We do not know what God is to us—until, in some way, we lose the sense of his presence and the consciousness of his love. This is true of all our blessings. We do not know their value to us until they are lost or imperiled.
We do not prize health until it is shattered and broken, and we can never have it restored again.
We do not recognize the richness and splendor of youth until it has fled, with all its glorious opportunities, and worlds cannot buy it back.
We do not appreciate the comforts and blessings of Providence until we have been deprived of them, and are driven out of warm homes into the cold paths of a dreary world.
We do not estimate the value of our facilities for education and improvement, until the period of these opportunities is gone, and we must enter the hard battle of life unfurnished and unequipped.
We do not know how much our friends are to us—until they lie before us silent and cold. Ofttimes the vacant chair, or the deep, unbroken loneliness about us—is the first revealer of the worth of one we have never duly prized.

The lesson, of course, is to reflect on every blessing as we enjoy it and to return thanks to God for each and every one.

Of all the divine thoughts recorded in the pages of sacred writ, of all the promises God provides to humanity, perhaps none is more moving, none more blessed, none more needful than this: He gives his beloved sleep.

What would we give to those we love if we had all the power of God Almighty, if we could dispense any gift from his endless storehouse? We would give the courage of a hero, the voice of an angel, the wealth of a king, the strength of a champion. God makes no such promises. Rather, the promise God makes is this: He gives his beloved sleep.
What do we bestow upon the ones with whom we share our lives? We bestow many blessings but also many sorrows. We give with one hand and take with the other. We speak blessings and curses, we make memories that are wonderful and memories that are hurtful. We give both smiles that satisfy and tears that aggrieve. But the God who withholds no good thing from the ones he loves gives them sleep.
“Sleep well, my love” we sometimes say, though we know we have no power to soothe a heart that is troubled, a mind that is roiled, a body that is aching. “Sleep well, my love,” we whisper, though we know that the dreams may still come, the night may still be long and dreadful. Yet no nightmare may disturb and no pain endure when God gives his beloved sleep.
This world is marked by noise, this earth with reasons to moan, to weep, to wail. Our days are attended by many stresses, many strains, many sore anxieties. Though we crave rest and need it so very badly, too often it simply will not come. But always we can rest on this sweet promise: God gives his beloved sleep.
As the years pass by, as the body weakens and faith deepens, we come to embrace God’s promises, for we know we need them, we know that to be without the Word is to be without hope. As our age increases, so does our trust and our dependence so that the faith of a tired old man is the faith of a fresh-faced young child—faith in the God who gives his beloved sleep.
And at the end of our days on earth, when we have come to the close of our journey and drawn our final breath, our friends will gather to bid a fond farewell. And on that day, may one of them say, by faith, “Dry your eyes and think on the precious promise he counted so dear. Weep no more, for God has given his beloved sleep.”

Inspired by The Sleep by Elizabeth Barrett Browning