Okay, now for the quotes . . .

A few months ago my sister Jessica let me borrow a book of hers called "Stepping Heavenward" by Elizabeth Prentiss. (Prentiss also wrote the hymn "More Love to Thee, O Christ".) I read the first few pages and then lost interest. Finally a month or two later, I picked up the book again and started reading more. This time I was hooked.
If you're like me, most of the time when I read books I want to just skim over the parts that are "boring" and seem to be going on and on. In this book, however, I decided that if I was really going to read it, I probably shouldn't skip over some parts. I'm glad I decided to read it completely, because these few paragraphs really help me to see more clearly what Christ is doing in my life.

" . . . you must go to Christ Himself, not to one of His servants. Make your complaint, tell Him how obscure everything still looks to you and beg Him to complete your cure. He may see fit to try your faith and patience by delaying this completion; but meanwhile you are safe in His presence, and while led by His hand, He will excuse the mistakes you make and pity your falls. But you will imagine that it is best that He should at once enable you to see clearly. If it is, you may be sure He will do it. He never makes mistakes. But He often deals far differently with His disciples. He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him.

What His methods will be with you I cannot foretell. But you may be sure that He never works in an arbitrary way. He has a reason for everything He does. You may not understand why He leads you now in this way and now in that, but you may, nay, you must believe that perfection is stamped on His every act."   Stepping Heavenward, pages 85-86

Encouraging . . . Thought-provoking . . . I love how Elizabeth Prentiss words this. You can go straight to God and bring to Him your needs and your grievances, your joys and your pains, your smiles and your tears. You don't have to go through "one of His servants" to talk and listen to Jesus. He cares about you personally and wants you to come to Him yourself and ask Him to take help you. Meanwhile we have to be patient and wait on Him to do what He will with us in HIS timing. That's a lot easier to write than it is to do.

"He lets them grope their way in the dark until they fully learn how blind they are, how helpless, how absolutely in need of Him."

Have I fully learned how blind, how helpless, and how absolutely in need of Him I am?  May Christ teach me and cause me to understand this fact so that I will become more and more like Him until the coming day.

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure"                 Philippians 2:13