I think I get it now. For a long time, I was baffled at the resurgence of popularity in vinyl. I didn’t get it. I especially didn’t get how suddenly expensive it was to buy a record (or an LP as we cool kids used to call them back in the day).

I have seen the light. And yes, I’ve also seen the Blues Brothers movie where that line comes from. But I totally get the vinyl craze. I can just about count myself in that category now.

There’s something about the hunt, about finding that special album, about putting the needle down on the record and hearing the magical sounds issuing forth. It’s a tangible link back to my childhood.

I’m not a fan of some of the price tags. Then again, I’m not a fan of the price of a lot of concert tickets these days. I guess just about everything is expensive these days.

But money spent on good music is never wasted, I think.

I can’t tell you how this picture perfectly describes what it was like for me as an elementary-aged kid back in the day when I was sick. I never wanted to be sick, but I didn’t hate having a sick day, as long as I didn’t feel too awful.

I had Bob Barker and The Price is Right. I had Three Stooges short films. I had a comfy couch and a sleeping bag where I could convalesce in relative peace. Throw in some saltine crackers and some ginger ale, and I was a happy kid. But not too happy, otherwise Mom would have sent me back to school sooner. I had to play up the feeling bad part so I could milk my illness for all it was worth.

These days, being sick is no fun. You just feel bad without any of the perks. In fact, being an adult has been an overrated experience in my opinion. So many of us are in such a hurry to be grown up, only to spend a lot of time as adults wishing we could be kids again. Oh, the irony.

“’There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health,’ Charles Spurgeon said. ‘It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it.’

“It is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it. And we get grace enough to bear it — when we run into the arms of Grace who bore it all, into Him Who is more than enough.

I run my hand across the page. Gather the manna up into hands, what really is, and all that feeds:

Our cries to the Lord — are what give us communion with the Lord. It’s the dire distress that drives us into the deep devotion.

It’s when all fails, His love never fails — and this is why we are a people who can always give thanks.”

If I’m honest, I don’t like reading about how suffering can be a good thing or how people can view illness and pain as a kind of severe mercy. I’d rather have all the blessings and skip all the hard parts, thank you very much.

I don’t think I need to go asking and seeking for persecution and suffering. If I live long enough and stay true to what I believe, those things will come. Jesus promised that in this life we would have trouble. No mights or maybes or perhapses. It’s inevitable as sure as death and taxes.

But just as sure is the hesed, the lovingkindness of God. Just as inevitable is the promise of God to always be with His children, to never leave nor forsake them.

The persecution won’t last forever. The pain will cease. What will remain beyond both of those and through every other hardship is the unfailing love and mercy of the changeless God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now” (St. Teresa of Avila).

I think sometimes we stop at being the mouthpiece of Jesus. We speak His words (or what we want to be His words). Interestingly, many times the Jesus we espouse has the same political leanings as ours and this Jesus’ words are more or less our words spoken louder and more forcefully.

But it’s one thing to speak for Jesus and quite another to go and do the works of Jesus. I want to be clear when I say that preaching the gospel is both lived out and spoken at all times. In other words, yes, it is necessary to use words because good deeds and good behavior alone will only convey a gospel of good works and better morals.

Being the hands and feet of Jesus isn’t just a nice ideal. It’s what it means to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. It’s not just bringing words about Jesus to people, but bringing Jesus to people by means of acts of compassion and blessing.

May it be our heart’s desire to reflect Jesus by being His hands and feet wherever we go and in whatever we do or say.

I have so many other conflicting desires. Mostly they are my desire to live holy and to please God in conflict with my desire to be constantly convenienced and comfortable and to please myself. Even I realize that I can’t have it both ways. I have to choose one or the other.

I think the Bible speaks to conflicting desires. The solution is clear but not easy. The answer is that I have to die to my own desires and to my own self. I may think I know what’s good for me, but then again, if I had my way, I’d eat my weight in chocolate and peanut butter. That probably wouldn’t work out so well.

But I’m learning God’s way is always best. It’s typically not the easiest route, nor is it the most convenient. But Jesus talked about the way to heaven being a narrow road that few find, while the road to the other place being wide with lots of people on it. That doesn’t strike me as being easy.

Jesus’ way isn’t easy. In fact, it’s impossible apart from the grace of God and the power of the indwelling Spirit. Even then, there’s always going to be a battle between what my own fleshly nature wants and what I know God wants for me.

Help me, God, to always choose Your way and trust Your heart instead of what I see and think and feel. Your ways are always better and Your heart for me is always good. Amen.

“When God speaks he speaks so loudly that all the voices of the world seem dumb. And yet when God speaks he speaks so softly that no one hears the whisper but yourself. Today, perhaps, the Lord is turning and looking at you. Right where you are, your spirit is far away just now, dealing with some sin, some unbearable weight; and God is teaching you the lesson himself – the bitterest, yet the sweetest lesson of your life, in heartfelt repentance. Stay right where you are. Don’t return into the hustle and bustle of life until the Lord has also turned and looked on you again, as he looked at the thief upon the cross, and until you have beheld the ‘glory of the love of God in the face of Jesus'” (Henry Drummond).

How easy it is to rush back into hectic life instead of patiently waiting for God to speak. I sometimes wonder why I don’t hear from God as often as I would like, then I realize that I hardly give him a moment to speak a word into my world.

Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t because we’re afraid of what God will say to us. Maybe we think He’ll be angry — or worse, disappointed. Maybe we think we’ve blown it once too often and this is the time God will cut ties with us.

I know it’s a flawed analogy, but it’s like a well-meaning child with a parent. The parent may admonish the child or scold the child, but there’s no way a good father or mother will give up on a son or a daughter. Their love is too strong to cease because of hurt or anger.

God’s love for us is so much more and so much greater. God has promised that His love for His own will never cease at any point. We didn’t do anything to earn His love and we can’t do anything to lose it.

So what does God want to say to you and me? Only what will make us more like Jesus. What will help us to grow and mature. What will lead us into the abundant life He has promised for us.

So the question is this: will you and I make time to listen?

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, The Message).

Contrary to the title of a popular book, your best life is not now but is yet to come. I’ve heard that this life at best is like a clean bus station or terminal. You might really like being there, but you’re not about to pack all your things and move to a Grayhound bus station or to an airport. Those places are only temporary until you get to your real destination.

Sometimes I forget this life is temporary. This world is temporary. I’m not meant to be at home in this present age where we live in a beautiful but a broken world. This life can be great at times but also sorrowful and savage as well. While there are moments of beauty, there are tragic and brutal moments as well that many of us can scarcely begin to fathom.

We also can’t imagine what’s to come, but it’s beyond our imaginings in a good way. It’s exceedingly and abundantly more than we can imagine or dream or hope for. And it will be just as permanent as this life is temporary. It will be the truest sense of eternal life, both in terms of quantity and quality. It’s like what C. S. Lewis said about all our lives up to the point of eternity being like the preface and title page and table of contents. Heaven is the real story where each chapter is better than the last and you never want the story to end. And the best news of all is that it doesn’t.

“Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son–a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone’s rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption. As Amy Carmichael said, ‘See in it a chance to die,’ meaning a chance to leave self behind”(Elisabeth Elliot).

The above quote is almost entirely opposite to a lot of current thinking within Christendom. Most of modern thinking is that God wants you to be happy and to flourish in this lifetime. Struggles mean that you’re doing something wrong and suffering is always something to be remedied rather than endured.

But Jesus said that in this world you will have trouble. You will have suffering. The Bible said if they mistreated Jesus, they will certainly mistreat you. It also says to rejoice when people persecute you on account of belonging to Jesus and being associated with the Name. Then you know you’re doing something right.

I’m not a masochist. I’d rather avoid any discomfort if at all possible. But I also know that growth and maturity come at a price — often a painful price — and if I fit so completely within the world’s way of living and thinking that I don’t cause a stir, then I’m blending in rather than reflecting who Jesus is.

I think we’ve lost what it means to die to self — instead of giving in to instant gratification all the time to deny your cravings and put others first. It’s not about being a passive doormat as it is to show disciplined strength. We’ve lost the idea of taking up our crosses daily and following Jesus.

Jesus endured the cross and all that went with it because He saw beyond to the joy that awaited. We can endure anything in the power of that cross because we know that this momentary season of suffering can’t begin to compare with the eternal weight of glory that’s coming. The victory will far surpass any losses we endure and the gain will far outweigh any losses.

“. . . . Hope is a revolutionary patience . . . . Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up” (Anne Lemott, Bird by Bird).

I heard a quote that said that courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” I think hope looks a lot like that.

It’s not always the unwavering confidence that no obstacle can weaken. It’s the stubborn belief in a better outcome, that God does indeed work all things together for good. It’s a revolutionary patience that while it grows weary and heavy-laden, it never quite runs out or completely goes away. There’s always a mustard seed of faith that perseveres in spite of odds or obstacles.

It’s a day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute kind of thing. It’s taking deep breaths and doing the very next thing, taking the next step, trusting God for the next 60 seconds.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all” (Emily Dickinson).

“Oh Lord, You know my heart better than I know it myself. You know my struggles and You hold each hope and fear in Your caring hands. Teach me, LORD, to be still and to know that You are God. 

You are in Your holy temple; let all the earth, including my mind and heart, be silent before You, resting in Your sovereignty. Like Elijah, teach me to wait for Your still, small voice and quiet the earthquakes and blazing fires in my life. 

Replace my restless doing with inner calm, and help me, like Mary, to sit at Your feet in quiet adoration even if there are a million things clamoring for my attention. Just as You spoke over the tumultuous sea and storms, so speak over my heart Your shalom. 

‘Peace. Be still,’ You said to them, and immediately they quieted. Teach my heart to cease striving and to know– to yada, to have an intimate and deep, personal, first-hand experience–that You are God. 

Help me cultivate a quiet heart, like a baby content in its mother’s arms, no longer coming to You with a ‘gimme’ spirit but instead calmly nestling against Your heart. Help me find quietness  and happiness in intimate communion with You. You will be exalted over all the earth, and You’ve got the details of my day covered. I can rest in You. 

Amen” (Asheritah Ciuciu, onethingalone.com).