? Want

“Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.”
Luke 12:15 MSG

Are you in prison? You are if you feel better when you have more and worse when you have less. You are if joy is one delivery away, one transfer away, one award away, or one makeover away. If your happiness comes from something you deposit, drive, drink, or digest, then face it—you are in prison, the prison of want.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, you have a visitor. And your visitor has a message that can get you paroled. Make your way to the receiving room. Take your seat in the chair, and look across the table at the psalmist David. He motions for you to lean forward. “I have a secret to tell you,” he whispers, “the secret of satisfaction. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want’” (Ps. 23:1 NKJV).

It’s as if he is saying, “What I have in God is greater than what I don’t have in life.”

You think you and I could learn to say the same?

with thanks from Max

Experience as Teacher

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Experience is said to be the best teacher. Genuine experience is indeed superior to book knowledge. But habits and customs gird men and women as with iron bands, and they are generally justified by experience, according to the common understanding of experience. Very many have abused precious experience. They have clung to their injurious habits, which are decidedly enfeebling to physical, mental, and moral health, and when you seek to instruct them, they sanction their course by referring to their experience. But true experience is in harmony with natural law and science.

Here is where we have met with the greatest difficulties in religious matters. The plainest facts may be presented, the clearest truths brought before the mind, sustained by the word of God; but the ear and heart are closed, and the all-convincing argument is "my experience." Some will say, The Lord has blessed me in believing and doing as I have; therefore I cannot be in error. "My experience" is clung to, and the most elevating, sanctifying truths of the Bible are rejected for what they are pleased to style experience. Many of the grossest habits are cherished, with the plea of experience. Many fail to reach that physical, intellectual, and moral improvement it is their privilege and duty to attain, because they will contend for the reliability and safety of their experience, although that misjudged experience is opposed to the plainest revealed facts. Men and women, with constitution and health gone because of their wrong habits and customs, will be found recommending their experience, which has robbed them of vitality and health, as safe for others to follow. Very many examples might be given to show how men and women have been deceived in relying upon their experience.

RH, July 27, 1886

Isaiah 41:8-20

8 "But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, The
descendants of Abraham My friend.
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called from its
farthest regions, And said to you, 'You are My servant, I have chosen
you and have not cast you away:
10 Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will
strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My
righteous right hand.'
11 "Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and
disgraced; They shall be as nothing, And those who strive with you
shall perish.
12 You shall seek them and not find them-- Those who contended with you.
Those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing.
13 For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you,
'Fear not, I will help you.'
14 "Fear not, you worm Jacob, You men of Israel! I will help you," says the
Lord and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
15 "Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth;
You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills
like chaff.
16 You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind
shall scatter them; You shall rejoice in the Lord, And glory in the Holy
One of Israel.
17 "The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail
for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not
forsake them.
18 I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of
the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, And the dry
land springs of water.
19 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle
and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine
and the box tree together,
20 That they may see and know, and consider and understand together, That
the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has
created it.
nkjv