"It Is Well With My Soul" has stricken me today, and I hope I can digest it further. One particular phrase sticks out: "Let this blest assurance control." Singing the song in its entirety, you may be able to boost your spirit a bit upon hearing the words, but when I write the entire song out, this phrase jumps off the page demanding my attention. It comes right after the phrase, "Though Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come..." The challenge comes when you read, "Let this blest assurance control." This phrase requires our action. I really need to learn how to LET this assurance of God's goodness and provision to control my thought and spirit. Easier said than done a lot of the times, but today I am begging for it it. I beg that God would let this assurance control my thoughts and heart. I beg my soul to LET this assurance control things. I hope to be controlled by God's blest assurance rather than my worry, my fears, my self-consciousness. I beg my soul within me to be controlled by God's blessed assurance.
Assurance Control
"It Is Well With My Soul" has stricken me today, and I hope I can digest it further. One particular phrase sticks out: "Let this blest assurance control." Singing the song in its entirety, you may be able to boost your spirit a bit upon hearing the words, but when I write the entire song out, this phrase jumps off the page demanding my attention.
It comes right after the phrase, "Though Satan should buffet, tho' trials should come..." The challenge comes when you read, "Let this blest assurance control." This phrase requires our action. I really need to learn how to LET this assurance of God's goodness and provision to control my thought and spirit. Easier said than done a lot of the times, but today I am begging for it it. I beg that God would let this assurance control my thoughts and heart. I beg my soul to LET this assurance control things. I hope to be controlled by God's blest assurance rather than my worry, my fears, my self-consciousness. I beg my soul within me to be controlled by God's blessed assurance.
Cornel West Week: faith
"There is a difference between 'rational certainty' and 'blessed assurance'; blessed assurance is stepping out on nothing and landing on something."
This week I will be highlighting a few quotes from Dr. Cornel West; one of today's most provocative thinkers. He is a champion for racial justice as well as a strong advocate for the poor and marginalized.
The quote above is a favorite of mine as it truly strikes at the core of faith. It is a reminder that one of the absolute ingredients of faith is risk. Faith is a trust, and to trust anything or anyone there must be a risk you are willing to take. You have to step out on something. If you have not taken some sort of risk, it is not trust. It is not faith. You have to step out on nothing to land on something, and once you land on something you get the assurance and affirmation of that trust. But it does not happen in the opposite order.
Dr West also said,"There is always an element of doubt in your faith because it is not always all about you. You are acknowledging something greater than you."
Jesus said the greatest commandment before us is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Wonder and awe are love languages of the soul. To have faith is to acknowledge that God is bigger and beyond you. It is to acknowledge that he does not fit into the constraints of your ability to comprehend with your left brain logic. It is to step out with our right brain imagination and wonder.