Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for many things, but I will focus on just one: I am ever so grateful that God speaks. Unfortunately it is all too often true, however, that I do not listen. My mind is so scattered and my day so busy with trivial matters. Whenever I do get the chance for quietness, I too often opt instead to turn on the TV or sit down at the computer to surf. I am so guilty of overlooking the one thing that matters most: Him.

I am grateful for His voice and the creative ways He chooses to make it known. Of course, He speaks through His word, but He also speaks through little children. Sometimes He chooses to speak through the unlikeliest of rogues. Other times He calls to us from the treasures of insight left by a faithful member of the cloud of witnesses. This is the type of speaking that I heard today through the captured thoughts of one such saint: Amy Carmichael. Here are the words she penned that I am currently chewing on:

The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding one scrap. Yet they can knock a strong person over and lay him low....But as we go on steadfastly obeying the word that compelled, we do become aware that it was all worthwhile. We know it, we know Him with us, and that is life.

...the great thing is not your feeling, but His fact.
~Amy Carmichael from Candles in the Dark