Books, Books, Books

Yesterday Our family was so excited!!! I’d looked out the back of our public library, where the older books are kept, and found a real treasure! Six of Graham Oakley’s Church Mouse books, some of which we hadn’t yet read! We hussled home, and squashed up on the couch. We laughed ourselves to pieces!

Today I’m so excited! I just finished counting our family’s books, and the total is…. 2,190!!! I had problems with freezing cold rooms and the issue of whether or not pamphlets/ magazines etc. are books, but it was well worth it!

Tomorrow Mum is holding a meeting outside our local Post Office. It’s about a book which has very unfortunately been given a New Zealand Post Children’s Book award. This book, which I have not read, is a really filthy novel, and written for young adults. It’s so bad that the authour had to self-publish it. (You get the picture 🙂 ) Please pray that the reward will be withdrawn.

In our family, books are very important. Mum spends up to two hours each day reading to us, individually or all together. Then, we each spend a lot more time reading on our own.

It’s often hard to find books which are really worth reading. Most non-fiction is based on humanistic, evolutionary thinking, which can subtly influence our thinking, without us being aware of it. It’s a lot easier to realize what’s happening with a book titled “Atheistic Worldviews of the Twenty-first Century.” And most fiction is just as bad. So bad, in fact, that I’ve just about given up reading it, and now mostly read Christian non-fiction. I’m not saying that you should do the same, only that we should all be aware of what we, and our families, are actually learning from what we read.

Of course, the most important book is the Bible. And if we aren’t reading, studying, and memorizing it, we won’t be well-equipped to understand what really matters, what’s really going on in the world, and what other books we should be reading to understand other aspects of life in detail.

So, in conclusion:

• Reading books is important
• Some books are dangerous
• All Christians should be reading the most important Book of all.

Hope you all enjoyed this new style of post. It’s not about me. It’s not directly from the Bible. But I wrote it, and it’s for you! (Please note that although this post was published on Saturday, it was written on, and back-dated to, Thursday.)

To Go or To Stay

For several months now I’ve been feeling God calling me to the mission field. It began with a Bible reading: Jeremiah chapter one verses four to eight. It continued with a missionary’s newsletter, which included this verse : “And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Luke 10:2)

This call has only been growing stronger since then. I’ve been reading through the book of Acts, and read, spread through chapter 22, these words:
‘Get up and go, why do you delay? Get up, Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ (vv. 10, 16, 21) I wanted to go so much that I cried because of this ache I couldn’t dull. I didn’t know how, or where. But I knew that I had to go. Soon.

Then came yesterday.

I sat outside on a piece of roofing iron, crying again. (That happens when you’re growing up 🙂 ) I was wondering suddenly, whether to go or to stay.

My heart was changing… and I wasn’t sure why. This is what I wrote later that evening:  “I was wondering whether to go or to stay. Was ‘go’ a test, to see if, after being called to the mission field, I would be content to stay at home? Crying, I imagined. I imagined a wise man sitting down beside me. He spoke to me, some words of reassurance that God loved me now and forever. Then he turned and pointed to the moon. He said

“See the moon? See the white part, the part where the sun yet illuminates? That is your life, the part you have lived. You can see all of it. Now see the rest of the moon, the dark side? It’s not completely black, but dark brown. And if you look closely, you can see its outline. That is the rest of your life, the part yet to come. The white part shows the simple shape of the rest, but not the particulars. It is this way with your life. The part you have lived, you can see clearly, with all its humps and hollows, ins and outs, ups and downs. The rest, you will see as it comes.”

I had been totally convinced that the way I would be spending a good-sized portion of my life was on the mission field. And when that tugging left, it left me pondering. “Am I called to go, or to stay?” But I learned that knowing my calling isn’t the important thing.

All I need to know about the rest of my life is this:

1. That I will sin
2. That God has forgiven all my sins
3. That I must live in thankfulness to Him for His mercies (Psalm 136)

So I still don’t know whether I am called to go or to stay, but It Doesn’t Matter. Not now. What matters is that I remember to be humble in all circumstances before Almighty God.

And Serve Him with Joy!

Note: When I posted this, it was more than two weeks after the ‘evening’ and ‘yesterday’ spoken of here.