I Can't; He Will

I don't know if this is an anonymous internet item, or original with Dr. Grant, but this is a good reminder on busy and overwhelming days...

I Can't; He Will

You say: "All this seems impossible."
God's Word says: "All things are possible." (Luke 18:27)

You say: "I am just too tired."
God's Word says: "I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28-30)

You say: "I cannot go on."
God's Word says: "My grace is sufficient." (2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 91:15)

You say: "I do not know where to turn."
God's Word says: "I will direct your steps." (Proverbs 3:5- 6)

You say: "I cannot do it."
God's Word says: "You can do all things in Christ." (Philippians 4:13)

You say: "I know I am not able."
God's Word says: "But I am able." (2 Corinthians 9:8)

You say: "I cannot see the purpose in all this."
God's Word says: "All things work together for good." (Roman 8:28)

You say: "I simply cannot manage"
God's Word says: "I will supply all your needs" (Philippians 4:19)

You say: "I am fretful, fearful, and unsettled."
God's Word says: "I have not given you a spirit of fear." (2 Timothy 1:7)

You say: "I am worried and frustrated."
God's Word says: "Cast all your cares on me." (1 Peter 5:7)

You say: "I cannot figure all this out."
God's Word says: "I will give you wisdom." (1 Corinthians 1:30)

You say: "I feel that I am all alone."
God's Word says: "I will never leave you or forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

Some thoughts from Turkey

A couple of springs ago, my ds, Ben, traveled to Turkey. He spent 3 weeks or so traveling the length and breadth of its wonders, and it all resulted in some interesting and beautiful pictures and poetry. I thought it would be fun to post some here. Enjoy!










Anzac Cove, Gallipoli

Here,
beneath the mud
and soggy turf and
in the spring
flowers between the stones--
here rest
two hundred and fifty men
and boys
(Private, seventeen
dedicated by his beloved mother
the Lord hath given
the Lord hath taken away)
two hundred and fifty
laid down to rest,
bloodied after a short run
up a hostile hill
that did nothing for them
or for their purpose, in the end.
(Trooper, twenty-one
glad to live
gladly died, nobly
for a noble cause)
Two hundred and fifty,
a mere fraction of
the shattered sweethearts
and mourning mothers
(This Muslim soldier
lies here in honor,
facing souteast,
sideways to the rest)
the rest are elsewhere.
Here, though,
they sleep in the bosom of a now-friendly
land, covered over with
its mud and in the spring
its drooping flowers.

Monuments

1. Hattushas Dreams

Stone;
a memory in
and of
stone. Here
there is a king
strutting costumed,
attended, among the many
accustomed gods. Here
soldiers with crooked
swords,
pointed hats; stone
a memory of stone.
A mournfully worn
lion guards a long-
dry fountain.
The mountain has long
overgrown and eroded
the fortress
(well-positioned, long-
held by the king's
fathers) and
the straight walls
in disarray--
a jumble of overthrown stone.
The king and his soldiers:
the dry lion stares with shallow
eyes on their ruin
and remembers.

2. Antiochus Crumbling

The sun is high,
casting short shadows
from tall stone columns, topped
with crumbling eagles,
the helpless, ineffectual
watchers over the grave
of the wife of the king.
The heads of the gods
are broken, set
in a row before the feet
of the shattered king
on the broken head of Nemrut,
Tons of broken rock
have protected his corpse
better that curse or eagle
or lion, tons of rock
slowly shifting downward
to bury and crush the gods.
The sun sets slowly,
blood-red rays
painting the un-bodified profile
of the proud ruler, the human god
whose death the mountain pictures,
the sun setting over
the broken temple of
a god turned to dust.

3. Underground City

Stifled ancient whispers
held with the smoke-residue
in the soft rock
softly sigh half-memories.
Dark, dusty storerooms
(empty now)
seem still to wait
for the time of trouble,
when once again
the fathers bring their
wives and prayers and children
into the cool safe of the dark.
Fifteen hundred years and
carved low halls
slowly crack underground.
On both hands
dark empty passages
stare dimly,
dimly whisper sighs
of dull un-echoed footfalls
and prayers for safety
made in the dark.
The liturgy of time
had worn the cross
from the domed recess
behind the crumbling
altar, but the imagination of scholars
has carved a new one.

Sabbath Sentiments

I thought I might try to give a great quote or snippet of great preaching, or other appropriate posting on the Lord's Day, or at least on those Lord's Days that allow me the leisure of posting. Today I bring you some excellent John Piper via YouTube.

Quilting

I love quilting. I love fabric. I love color and design. I am not very good at it, but I am slowly improving over time. It is a relaxing, creative outlet for me! After twenty-some years of quilting a variety of things and giving them away, I am finally going to try to start recording my creations.

Here are two of my most recent projects: first, a queen size quilt entitled "Florentine Famulus" which was made for Ben and Elsa's wedding:

And here is my most recent, just completed last night. It is entitled "Bobby on a Fence", and was made for my DDILTB, Nikki. She'll be celebrating her birthday in just a few weeks, and this will be going with her tomorrow to Canada.

If you would like to see some more of my projects (at least the ones that are still around here) you can look in my Quilt Gallery. I love to plan and piece, and am slowing with the sandwiching and piecing, so I have a lot of UFO's (UnFinished Objects). Maybe this will help motivate me to finish some!

LAPD

This morning I enjoyed the following list of top 10 science based predictions that didn't come true. (Thanks to T.C. for posting a link!) Living in a science community as I do (the national laboratory town of Los Alamos, NM), surrounded by amazing scientists, I am constantly amazed myself at how our culture has imbued prophetic proportions to the predictions of men, even when they are proved wrong over and over again. I am not against scientific discovery and argument, which is often of necessity a trial-and-error method, and but against the presumptuous attitude that all knowledge must be scientific knowledge, or it is no knowledge at all, or it is at the least vastly inferior to scientific knowledge. Our culture has made idols of these things.

I really shouldn't place all the blame on our culture: some of the blame for this rests with the scientists themselves, of course. I am a happy member of a small, conservative church, where all 5 elders are PhD scientists in physics or chemistry or engineering. Hard to get more technically-bound than that! (Even the deacons are all scientists or engineers.) Each of these "doctors" went through a rigorous academic system that taught them to think carefully, analyze thoroughly, make sure conclusions, and defend them. Now, you want these guys on your side when the denomination is studying an issue like nuclear proliferation. But try getting ceiling fans installed by this group of men! Now, don't get me wrong: they are godly and humble fellows, and I love them one and all, but in order to install ceiling fans to move around the warm air in the summer, we had to calculate the max air flow rates in our space, determine the optimal amount of air flow that causes the sensation of cooling on a body, determine the size and noise-tolerance level needed, and then install one to experiment with the actual results. It took years. They have been trained to be skeptics and once they make a decision to stand by it. You can hardly expect them to leave this training aside in their every day lives.

I love this quirky town, and my quirky church. These men, my elders, many of them noted scientists in their fields, have learned to humble themselves before the creator of the universe, but they were built by that same God to be scientific sorts. Where else can you walk into a sanctuary after worship and find groups of men and children dispersed around the sanctuary doing an acoustics experiment, or overhear an actual conversation between two ruling elders over the barbecue grill about the difference in the mean density of hamburger versus steak, and how one would calculate the corresponding difference in cooking times? I have a friend here who describes these phenomena as "LAPD", which stands for "Los Alamos Personality Disorder." You can take the man out of the laboratory, but you can't take the scientist out of the man!

A day that will live in infamy...

No, I am not talking about December 7th, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and 2,403 men, women and children were killed, and another 1,178 were injured. I am talking about a day that began a process which has taken more than 46,000,000 lives over the last 35 years. I am talking about a day that a supreme court decision was rendered that will be remembered and judged in the same class as the infamous Dred Scott decision, which ruled that people with black skin were sub-human, and undeserving of their rights. I am, of course, referring to the Roe v. Wade decision, which put our country in the business of legalized homicide, largely for convenience and to escape the consequences of our actions. Today is a day of mourning.

Tolkien reads Tolkien

Again thanks to Dr. G. for his fine research into the archives of YouTube.

Vigen Guroian on the Virtues

“When the moral imagination is wakeful, the virtues come to life, filled with personal and existential as well as social significance. The virtues needn't be the dry and lifeless data of moral theories or the ethical version of hygienic rules in health science classes; they can take on a life that attracts and awakens the desire to own them for oneself. We need desperately to adopt forms of moral pedagogy that are faithful to the ancient and true vocation of the teacher -- to make persons into mature and whole human beings, able to stand face to face with the truth about themselves and others, while desiring to correct their faults and to emulate goodness and truth wherever it is found. We need to take greater advantage of the power in stories to humanize the young . . . .”

~Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue

The Inimitable G. K. Chesterton

...With many thanks to Dr. G., whose blog post put me onto this video.

Theodore Dalrymple on the Rush to Nonjudgmentalism

"Apologists for nonjudgmentalism point, above all, to its supposed quality of compassion. A man who judges others will sometimes condemn them and therefore deny them aid and assistance, where as the man who refuses to judge excludes no one from his all-embracing compassion. He never asks where his fellow man’s suffering comes from, whether it be self-inflicted or no: for whatever its source, he sympathizes with it and succors the sufferer…

"If the doctor has a duty to relieve the suffering of his patients, he must have some idea where that suffering comes from, and this involves the retention of judgment, including moral judgment. And if, as far as he can tell in good faith, the misery of his patients derives from the way they live, he has a duty to tell them so—which often involves a more or less explicit condemnation of their way of life as completely incompatible with a satisfying existence. By avoiding the issue, the doctor is not being kind to his patients; he is being cowardly. Moreover, by refusing to place the onus on the patients to improve their lot, he is likely to mislead them into supposing that he has purely technical or pharmacological answer to their problems, thus helping to perpetuate them…

"Experience has taught me that it is wrong and cruel to suspend judgment, that nonjudgmentalism is at best indifference to the suffering of others, at worst a disguised form of sadism. How can one respect people as members of the human race unless one holds them to a standard of conduct and thruthfulness? How can people learn from experience unless they are told that they can and should change? On doesn’t demand of laboratory mice that they do better: but man is not a mouse, and I can think no more contemptuous way of treating people than to ascribe to them no more responsibility than such mice.

"In any case, nonjudgmentalism is not really nonjudgmental. It is the judgment that, in the words of a bitter Argentinean tango, “todo we igual, nada es major”: everything is the same, nothing is better. This is as barbaric and untruthful a doctrine as has yet emerged from the fertile mind of man.”

~Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass

Movie Musings

A few notes on movies recently viewed:
Tim and my dad talked me into seeing I Am Legend staring Will Smith. This type of thriller/horror movie is not usually my cup of tea, and had I known more about the short story it is based on before I saw the film, I likely would not have been persuaded... However, go we did, and while it was intense and frightening, it was also remarkably redemptive, from the glimpse of a praying family on the edge of disaster, to real self-sacrifice, to hope. If you think you can take a post-apocalyptic zombie-vampire thriller, I recommend this one.



We also recently viewed the film Joyeux Noel. Even though this is a grossly Hollywood-ized version of the truth, it is an interesting and moving story. While the music element may not have happened in actual fact, and may be a sort of curtsy to art as a god in itself, it still made for a good story. The actors did a good job here, with the possible exception of the tenor, who didn't act well and who i thought had a less-than-stellar voice. However, the movie is worth it to hear the voice-over for Diane Kruger done by one of my favorite sopranos, Natalie Dessay. (And if you want further proof of her amazing talent, look here or here.) One warning: this film is rated PG-13, but I was a little shocked at the content of one scene between two lovers, and later read that it had originally received an R rating, that was changed after Roger Ebert and others complained and campaigned for a change. So take keep that in mind before viewing.

I enjoyed National Treasure 2: you just have to leave your knowledge of history and any worry about implausibility at the door. The acting was excellent, and it was just fun.

If you are looking for light, fluffy, dependable and fun, try this OLD Hepburn/Grant film. Holiday was pleasant to view in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate.




The Iranian film, Children of Heaven, was an interesting film well worth viewing. It is a simple, but inspiring story, and a glimpse of life in what must be a depressing segment of Iranian society. Its characters are engaging, and it was an affirmation that life is a precious thing even in precarious places, and little things make a big difference.

And lastly, here's one to avoid. Even Johnny Depp couldn't save this latest sequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie for me. Too weird, too many thin and implausible story lines, and nothing much good to say about it.

More about marriage

Weddings are on my mind a lot currently. This is, of course, partly because my family is busy with weddings-- my eldest son was married in December, and will be followed by my youngest next September, Lord willing. Additionally, many of their friends are getting married. It seems we barely got over the graduation rush, when we couldn't physically get to all the celebrations of graduates, and now we are in a wedding rush as our children, and friends' children, and children's friends are, many of them, marrying. And with weddings come showers, and with showers come devotionals. Below is another wedding devotional I gave: this one on the topic of faithfulness. May God make us faithful to Himself, and to our spouses!

Faithfulness

I thought we would open up our time with God’s Word to us in Proverbs Chapter 3, verse 3. This short verse is in a familiar passage that many of us have known since childhood, or have taught to our children as they have grown.
³Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;

bind them around your neck;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

This verse starts with a command: let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. So let’s look briefly at this command with special emphasis on how we can be faithful and steadfast to our husbands as a reflection of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to us.

This Scripture isn’t just talking about some random idea of steadfast love or faithfulness. These refer to God’s attributes: His character of steadfast love and His faithfulness.

His steadfast love is His deciding to place His affection on something and causing His affection to remain for eternity. It is His mercy to us in promising to love us, though we don’t deserve it. There will likely be times, as hard as it is to imagine before we marry, when we will feel like our husband doesn’t deserve our love and service. In those times, you must remember God’s love to you, and your lack of deserving it, and then you can make the decision to love that man for God’s sake, and for the sake of God’s steadfast love for you.

And God’s faithfulness reflects the changeableness of that steadfast love. It is God’s truthful performing of what He has promised. God’s faithfulness doesn’t have to do with feelings: it has to do with commitment. There will likely be times when you are weary or hurt, and your emotions will tell you to give up or flee the situation. That is when you are called on to reflect God’s faithfulness to your husband, and remain faithful to your promises as God has been faithful to you.

Our job as wives, then, is not to “invent” love and faithfulness, but to reflect God’s love and faithfulness to us into our relationships with Him and with our husbands. As the moon reflects the light of the sun, we need to reflect the steadfastness and faithfulness that God shines upon us.

But how do we, mere creatures that are sinful and fallen, reflect the Creator’s attributes of steadfast love and faithfulness? How do we practically do this? We begin by having integrity in our promises regarding where we place our affections: primarily we have integrity in our love for God, always keeping our relationship to Him our top priority. And our love for our husbands comes next in God’s hierarchy. But how are we supposed to keep love and faithfulness from leaving us? Proverbs 3:3 tells us how.

• First, we are to “bind them on our neck”: that means to adorn ourselves outwardly with them. This refers to the realm of our actions and our words. It means looking for ways as wives to affirm and respect and serve our husbands, instead of criticizing and tearing them down. It means guarding him in our words to others, and supporting him.
• Secondly, we are to “write them on the tablet of our hearts”: this is talking about inwardly guarding our motives, thoughts and emotions. Being faithful inwardly to our husband means always giving him the benefit of the doubt rather than jumping to the worst possible conclusions, or even sometimes the most likely conclusion! Inward faithfulness requires us to guard the way we think about our husbands, always remembering that God thinks on us with love and kindness even when we least deserve it. It means telling ourselves the truth when our emotions would run away with us and indulge us in self-pity.

I know that as a young couple you have already seen abundant evidence of God’s faithfulness in your life, and in your relationship. And now I pray for you, that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness would be reflected in your relationship first with the Lord, who is both the author of steadfast love and faithfulness, and the author of the good work He has begun in you. And secondly, that His steadfast love and faithfulness would be reflected from your heart, where it was received from our Great God, into your relationship, that you may bless Caleb as the Lord has blessed you, and reflect in your marriage that integrity of steadfast love and faithfulness that has been God’s gift to you.

Winter Reading Challenge Update #2

I completed my Tolstoy tome. It was interesting...

The story of Resurrection revolves around a rich Russian prince who seduces a young serving girl, beginning a cycle of abandonment and despair for the young woman. The moment of irony comes when the Prince is placed on a jury trying this woman for a crime she didn't commit, and the prince faces the results his past actions have brought about. Long narratives detailing the squalor, injustice and cruelty of the Russian legal and penal systems ensue. Some of these passages reminded me of Dickens's Bleak House, but without any of those Dickensian characters which make the despair bearable. As the prince follows the girl to Siberia, he searches his own soul and the heart of man, and finds both wanting. He experiences a kind of conversion experience, but far from being some orthodox religious experience, this is a man-centered Utopian endeavor which stands in stark contrast to Christianity. The tenets of this new "faith" are driven home rather mercilessly, and most particularly in a long passage where the prince reads the Sermon on the Mount, and interprets it for us as teaching a variety of things I have never found there. They include but are not limited to:

• Man must not only avoid murder, but must never be angry
• Man must avoid the enjoyment of the beauty of women
• Man must forgive any and all offenses and never refuse anything another asks of him

Additionally, the prince sees this passage as justification for doing away with the court and penal systems wholesale, and allowing men to live as brothers without committing cruelty in order to repress cruelty. There are so many practical and theological questions here, I won't even get started.

That aside, Tolstoy draws stark and often beautiful pictures, but this book tends towards the preachy a bit, and that with a Marxist/Hegelian type of slant. His political prisoners are all thoughtful, compassionate and correct Communists, and the pharisees running the courts and prisons are all Orthodox Church, upper-class and establishment. I also found myself with the nebulous feeling that I had when I read the translation of Les Miserables, that the language was likely beautiful in the original, but somehow just didn't translate well. I can't imagine Shakespeare, or even Dickens, would be the same in Russian...

I am glad I read the book, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. That is mostly because I found the ending disappointing, and the theology and politics irritating. Perhaps one is better off just going ahead and tackling War and Peace, and having done with it.

Some thoughts about the blessings of marriage

The following was a devotional I gave last weekend at a bridal shower. I have changed a few things to protect the identity of the bride-to-be: she was not engaged to anyone in my family. I removed the personal references, and put it here as a reminder to us all.

A Quiet and Gentle Spirit

It is always a pleasure to watch as a young lady comes under the influence of the Lord who made and claimed her. I find myself praising God for the quiet and gentle spirit He who began a good work in us is being faithful to complete. That, of course, reminded me of the first few verses of 1 Peter Chapter 3.

1 Peter 3:1-4

¹Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, ²when they see your respectful and pure conduct. ³Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— ⁴but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.

Every family needs a leader, and our husbands need to be the leaders of our families. When Peter tells us here that a wife should be subject to her own husband, he is not talking about inferiority, but about a characteristic of ready compliance with the husband's reasonable decisions. Not that all of a husband's decisions will be reasonable, but here Peter tells us that when they are not, we are not to argue. Instead, let our husbands see for themselves by the purity of our conduct, and be won over to the truth. What a blessing it is for us as wives to have God lay out for us the proper response to our husbands!

The problem is, of course, that submitting to our husbands implies a certain death to ourselves. And death is always painful. Just remember that as you submit to your husband, he is going to be dying to himself in his own way as he is called to live with you in understanding and accord you respect, as Peter tells him later in this same passage.

Verse 4 again says, “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.”

A Christian wife, then, as we are called to be, seeks to both please God and be a witness to God by a distinctive cultivation of that type of an inner spirit that is calm and imperturbable in relation to people and circumstances. This shows that our behavior is governed by a new set of values, different from those that may come naturally to us. It shows our choice to cultivate those characteristics that are highly valued by God: the inner dispositions of the heart.

The outward things, after all, are passing away. But those inward things—that gentle and quiet spirit-- are growing by God‘s grace day by day. The “gentleness” here means the way in which a wife can choose to respond to her husband’s demands and intrusions in her life in a docile, compliant way. And “quiet” here refers to the character of her action or reaction towards her husband and the world. She should be complementary to her husband (with and “e” not an “i”, meaning to complete, not to flatter!), and constant in her love for him, without rebellion, or fuss, or the fury for which women are so generally well known.

Peter goes on to tell us that this is how the holy women of the past adorned themselves, and how they brought honor to both God and their husbands. So, when you marry, you are embarking on not only a great adventure, but a great legacy. You have the opportunity to stand with the great and holy women of the past, and choose to adorn yourself with that quiet and gentle spirit that will be a great witness to your God and a great blessing to your husband and future family. May God give you the grace and power of His Spirit to be such

a blessing!

The Burpee Catalogue

True confession time. I just got my new Burpee catalogue. I love the Burpee Catalogue. Maybe it is the Iowa farmgirl in my genes, but when the new catalogue comes, I eye it for months. I marvel over the flowers, and imagine my backyard as an English garden full of cascades of color and contrast. I picture my tiny vegetable plot as a fruitful field with bush beans and towering tomatoes and sunflowers reaching heavenward. Even a girl in the high plains desert who is too lazy to actually accomplish such feats should be able to dream, right? In the end, I suspect I will order a couple of the seed packets that are on closeout, and then buy the cut-price tomato plants at Home Depot again. I will work hard getting things in, then poop out until harvest or the weeds or the drought get things, whichever happens first. But a girl can dream...

A New Route through the Bible in One Year

Most years, one of my resolutions is to read through the Bible in the coming year. Some years I make it. More often I skip parts to catch up with myself, or get frustrated and throw in the towel, or use a one-year reading plan for more than one year. This year, I am trying it in a new way. Using the RSS feed here, I get the passage in the ESV (English Standard Version) sent directly to my google reader each day. The text for the passages is there, as are mp3 audio files. I can click on the audio files each morning and listen while I get dressed and make my bed...or at least that is my plan. While I will do more in-depth study in my Women's Fellowship preparation (Philippians this Spring) and other things, this is a good "reading" program for me. I'll try to update in a few months and tell you if it's working.

You can see a variety of reading programs, courtesy of the ESV, here, or a different type of plan here. I enjoyed the second one because it mixes thing up a bit by genre, but I never finished it... And the standard R. M. M'Cheyene plan can be found here.

New Years Resolutions

Being New Year's Day, resolutions are on the mind of many people...or at least many bloggers, if the entries on my google reader are representative of the culture in general. Here are some excellent resolutions that put my usual resolutions to shame.

Happy New Year, everyone!

THE RESOLUTIONS of Jonathan Edwards

---

BEING SENSIBLE THAT I AM UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING WITHOUT GOD' S HELP, I DO HUMBLY ENTREAT HIM BY HIS GRACE TO ENABLE ME TO KEEP THESE RESOLUTIONS, SO FAR AS THEY ARE AGREEABLE TO HIS WILL, FOR CHRIST' S SAKE.

---

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God' s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new contrivance and invention to promote the aforementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.

9. Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.

10. Resolved, when I feel pain, to think of the pains of martyrdom, and of hell.

11. Resolved, when I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not hinder.

12. Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride, or vanity, or on any such account, immediately to throw it by.

13. Resolved, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.

14. Resolved, never to do any thing out of revenge.

15. Resolved, never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.

16. Resolved, never to speak evil of anyone, so that it shall tend to his dishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good.

17. Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

18. Resolved, to live so, at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

19. Resolved, never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if I expected it would not be above an hour, before I should hear the last trump.

20. Resolved, to maintain the strictest temperance, in eating and drinking.

21. Resolved, never to do any thing, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him. (Resolutions 1 through 21 written in one setting in New Haven in 1722)

22. Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.

23. Resolved, frequently to take some deliberate action, which seems most unlikely to be done, for the glory of God, and trace it back to the original intention, designs and ends of it; and if I find it not to be for God' s glory, to repute it as a breach of the 4th Resolution.

24. Resolved, whenever I do any conspicuously evil action, to trace it back, till I come to the original cause; and then, both carefully endeavor to do so no more, and to fight and pray with all my might against the original of it.

25. Resolved, to examine carefully, and constantly, what that one thing in me is, which causes me in the least to doubt of the love of God; and to direct all my forces against it.

26. Resolved, to cast away such things, as I find do abate my assurance.

27. Resolved, never willfully to omit any thing, except the omission be for the glory of God; and frequently to examine my omissions.

28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

29. Resolved, never to count that a prayer, nor to let that pass as a prayer, nor that as a petition of a prayer, which is so made, that I cannot hope that God will answer it; nor that as a confession, which I cannot hope God will accept.

30. Resolved, to strive to my utmost every week to be brought higher in religion, and to a higher exercise of grace, than I was the week before.

31. Resolved, never to say any thing at all against any body, but when it is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, and of love to mankind, agreeable to the lowest humility, and sense of my own faults and failings, and agreeable to the golden rule; often, when I have said anything against anyone, to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this Resolution.

32. Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that, in Proverbs 20:6,‹A faithful man who can find?Š may not be partly fulfilled in me.

33. Resolved, to do always, what I can towards making, maintaining, and preserving peace, when it can be done without overbalancing detriment in other respects. Dec. 26, 1722.

34. Resolved, in narrations never to speak any thing but the pure and simple verity.

35. Resolved, whenever I so much question whether I have done my duty, as that my quiet and calm is thereby disturbed, to set it down, and also how the question was resolved. Dec. 18, 1722.

36. Resolved, never to speak evil of any, except I have some particular good call for it. Dec. 19, 1722.

37. Resolved, to inquire every night, as I am going to bed, wherein I have been negligent,- what sin I have committed,-and wherein I have denied myself;-also at the end of every week, month and year. Dec. 22 and 26, 1722.

38. Resolved, never to speak anything that is ridiculous, sportive, or matter of laughter on the Lord' s day. Sabbath evening, Dec. 23, 1722.

39. Resolved, never to do any thing of which I so much question the lawfulness of, as that I intend, at the same time, to consider and examine afterwards, whether it be lawful or not; unless I as much question the lawfulness of the omission.

40. Resolved, to inquire every night, before I go to bed, whether I have acted in the best way I possibly could, with respect to eating and drinking. Jan. 7, 1723.

41. Resolved, to ask myself, at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly, in any respect, have done better. Jan. 11, 1723.

42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1722-23.

43. Resolved, never, henceforward, till I die, to act as if I were any way my own, but entirely and altogether God' s; agreeable to what is to be found in Saturday, January 12, 1723.

44. Resolved, that no other end but religion, shall have any influence at all on any of my actions; and that no action shall be, in the least circumstance, any otherwise than the religious end will carry it. January 12, 1723.

45. Resolved, never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion. Jan. 12 and 13, 1723.

46. Resolved, never to allow the least measure of any fretting uneasiness at my father or mother. Resolved to suffer no effects of it, so much as in the least alteration of speech, or motion of my eye: and to be especially careful of it with respect to any of our family.

47. Resolved, to endeavor, to my utmost, to deny whatever is not most agreeable to a good, and universally sweet and benevolent, quiet, peaceable, contented and easy, compassionate and generous, humble and meek, submissive and obliging, diligent and industrious, charitable and even, patient, moderate, forgiving and sincere temper; and to do at all times, what such a temper would lead me to; and to examine strictly, at the end of every week, whether I have done so. Sabbath morning. May 5, 1723.

48. Resolved, constantly, with the utmost niceness and diligence, and the strictest scrutiny, to be looking into the state of my soul, that I may know whether I have truly an interest in Christ or not; that when I come to die, I may not have any negligence respecting this to repent of. May 26, 1723.

49. Resolved, that this never shall be, if I can help it.

50. Resolved, I will act so as I think I shall judge would have been best, and most prudent, when I come into the future world. July 5, 1723.

51. Resolved, that I will act so, in every respect, as I think I shall wish I had done, if I should at last be damned. July 8, 1723.

52. I frequently hear persons in old age, say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age. July 8, 1723.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer. July 8, 1723.

54. Whenever I hear anything spoken in conversation of any person, if I think it would be praiseworthy in me, Resolved to endeavor to imitate it. July 8, 1723.

55. Resolved, to endeavor to my utmost to act as I can think I should do, if, I had already seen the happiness of heaven, and hell torments. July 8, 1723.

56. Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.

57. Resolved, when I fear misfortunes and adversities, to examine whether I have done my duty, and resolve to do it, and let the event be just as providence orders it. I will as far as I can, be concerned about nothing but my duty, and my sin. June 9, and July 13 1723.

58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity. May 27, and July 13, 1723.

59. Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times. May 12, July 11, and July 13.

60. Resolved, whenever my feelings begin to appear in the least out of order, when I am conscious of the least uneasiness within, or the least irregularity without, I will then subject myself to the strictest examination. July 4, and 13, 1723.

61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it-that what my listlessness inclines me to do, is best to be done, etc. May 21, and July 13, 1723.

62. Resolved, never to do anything but duty, and then according to Ephesians 6:6-8, to do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man:‹knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.Š June 25 and July 13, 1723.

63. On the supposition, that there never was to be but one individual in the world, at any one time, who was properly a complete Christian, in all respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always shining in its true luster, and appearing excellent and lovely, from whatever part and under whatever character viewed: Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove with all my might to be that one, who should live in my time. January 14 and July 13, 1723.

64. Resolved, when I find those ‹groanings which cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26), of which the Apostle speaks, and those‹breakings of soul for the longing it hath, of which the Psalmist speaks, Psalm 119:20, that I will promote them to the utmost of my power, and that I will not be weary of earnestly endeavoring to vent my desires, nor of the repetitions of such earnestness. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

65. Resolved, very much to exercise myself in this, all my life long, viz. with the greatest openness, of which I am capable of, to declare my ways to God, and lay open my soul to him: all my sins, temptations, difficulties, sorrows, fears, hopes, desires, and every thing, and every circumstance; according to Dr. Manton' s 27th Sermon on Psalm 119. July 26, and Aug.10 1723.

66. Resolved, that I will endeavor always to keep a benign aspect, and air of acting and speaking in all places, and in all companies, except it should so happen that duty requires otherwise.

67. Resolved, after afflictions, to inquire, what I am the better for them, what am I the better for them, and what I might have got by them.

68. Resolved, to confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help. July 23, and August 10, 1723.

69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it. August 11, 1723.

70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak. August 17, 1723.

(This list found here.)