I love this line: "Always make a practice of provoking your mind to think out what it accepts easily." How many times have I thought I understood something only to stumble around in the explanation of it? Make a practice of provoking your mind.
I am the staff writer for the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane, WA, and I recently co-wrote a magazine article with my executive director, entitled, "What I Know." He was limited to about 800 words, so we focused on about 8 things -- every man is worth understanding, it's never too late, homelessness can happen to anyone, God transforms . . . Even though we were dealing with his most closely held, time-worn beliefs, it was not an easy article to write.
What would I write if it were my article? What do I know? What do I easily accept that needs the discipline of explanation? My assignment: write my own "What I Know" article.
Oswald's final sentence describes my vocation: "The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance." Amen, brother!
I am going to do that What I know exercise with you, Barb, and will share later. Meanwhile, I am reflecting on that final paragraph because it struck me as well and I have a slightly different version: "The people who have benefited me the most are those whose lives give expression to the truths that I have read and even wanted to believe but wouldn't have understood until I saw them lived out before my eyes." None of these people are "authors" yet their lives have been letters of encouragement to me.
ReplyDeleteI would love to read your "What I Know" article. Your version broadens that final idea quite a bit. Was that the online version?
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ReplyDeleteNo, that's my own expanded version. I was thinking of people like my mother-in-law who lived with us for 8 years. She embodied godly contentment and submissiveness to the sovereign will of God. Her life modeled to me the concept of resting in the perfect will of God and was a "letter of encouragement" to me. I could probably write a book about what I learned during the years that Doug's mom lived with us. It was a time of great struggle . . . not with believing but with submitting and her life and constant prayer spurred me on to victory. What a tremendous testimony to the value of one little old lady's beautiful life, hidden in Christ.
ReplyDeleteOh, now I understand. So glad you shared both your version and the story. My understanding is richer for having heard them.
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