A Way Of Seeing

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that while back home we discovered a used book store in my home town called “Our Place”. After purchasing The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes my parents, Daniel and I sat down to enjoy books, coffee and each other’s company. Sitting there I spied Edith Schaffer’s A Way of Seeing on the discount rack. Knowing my wife as I do, who loves used books I decided to put down the $1.50 and bring it back to her as a present.

As she was reading this week Diana called out, “Listen to this.” What she read could just as easily have been written this week in response to the current U.S and world financial crisis. Although written in the 70’s let us be encouraged by these timeless truths:

"News magazines and newspapers scream at us with headlines predicting worldwide depression. An anxious scrutiny of the stock reports shows a general decline in value…Prices soar, and rice, margarine, and dried beans have little tags on them which seem like a week-by-week joke as new packages are brought home and put on the shelf beside those purchased weeks before for half the amount of money. Rumors float around by word of mouth as to what might be a safe thing to do with cash, as to what land might be a good investment, as to how to protect what one has.

"As we look into the Bible, our source for practical knowledge of what to do day by day and how to live according to God’s specific advice, we are hit by the truth of how well God knows us, as well as the definiteness of His commands. We can’t one day say, 'Why didn’t You tell us?' He has told us so clearly, but we are so often blind and deaf, or we let words flow over us like rain…Words – words – words – like drops of water or music, pleasant but temporary in effect. The Word of God is not meant to be like that. If it is not cutting us deep, sharper than a two-edged sword, then we have not really listened or seen.

"Read Luke 12:15-34 and think about it as if you had never seen it before. Think about it in relationship to the stock-market report, and the tax bill. What are we to worry about? Anything?...Verse 29 shows us that He wants us to think not about a coming depression and how it might affect our daily need of food and drink. We are not to be 'doubtful' or worried as the world would worry. If we lose everything, we are not to react in an anxious way. Why? Because here is a practical place for us to demonstrate to Satan, the demons, the angels, the 'nations' (all the people who are not in the family of the Lord) that we really do believe the truth of true truth in a practical way. We are to remember that the difference will show up in remembering that our Heavenly Father knows we have need of these material things and that He will 'add' them to us, if we put first things first. And what is first? 'But rather seek ye first the kingdom of God.'"