Amen, Jim! We can only brighten the corner where we are if we are connected to the Vine, Jesus Christ! I love how patient Jesus is with us, and as I keep experiencing, every invitation to lay aside a habit or practice that I thought was for my good is actually an opportunity to receive a greater blessing from Jesus!
This past Sabbath, I chose to "come aside" and spend some quiet moments with Jesus in nature on the way back from the churches where I had preached. As I was reading in the book Ministry of Healing, I was reading page 471, paragraph 3: "The potter takes the clay and molds it according to his will. He kneads it and works it. He tears it apart and presses it together. He wets it and then dries it. He lets it lie for a while without touching it. When it is perfectly pliable, he continues the work of making of it a vessel. He forms it into shape and on the wheel trims and polishes it. He dries it in the sun and bakes it in the oven. Thus it becomes a vessel fit for use. So the great Master Worker desires to mold and fashion us. And as the clay is in the hands of the potter, so are we to be in His hands. We are not to try to do the work of the potter. Our part is to yield ourselves to be molded by the Master Worker." This reminded me of the Bible promise of Jeremiah 18:6, "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel." As I read the text, the Holy Spirit impressed me about my eating habits (trying to eat a third meal, but not always finding the best health from the practice): "Stop eating a third meal. Rest your organs." I obeyed God, having two meals now since Sabbath. I was amazed at what God did last night--since I had taken my last meal in the mid-afternoon, I was ready to rest by about 9pm, and then the Lord woke me up not long after 2am...and I was not tired! I am finding out more and more that when we try to reason our own experience over the plain teaching of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, that we are making things harder on ourselves. Ellen White did write, "The stomach must have careful attention. It must not be kept in continual operation. Give this misused and much-abused organ some peace and quiet and rest. After the stomach has done its work for one meal, do not crowd more work upon it before it has had a chance to rest and before a sufficient supply of gastric juice is provided by nature to care for more food. Five hours at least should elapse between each meal, and always bear in mind that if you would give it a trial, you would find that two meals are better than three."—Letter 73a, 1896 {CD 173.1}
I love it when God says, "Prove me," so to speak. I was thinking of what we read in our chapter today, and there were so many places where the Holy Spirit was able to speak to me because I actually TOOK TIME to read the chapter with a pen and my journal with a willing heart to hear what God was saying to me from the passage in John 11 and from the chapter. While spending over two hours in this reading along with the Scriptures around it may seem like a long time, it went so fast, and I enjoyed the experience with Jesus immensely. This "thoughtful hour" is the most exciting and rewarding part of the day!
I was blessed by this thought, as it encapsulates the life and experience of Jesus from Bethlehem to the point in which we now find Him, so desirous of reaching hearts that will not surrender:
"His life had been one of persecution and insult. Driven from Bethlehem by a jealous king, rejected by His own people at Nazareth, condemned to death without a cause at Jerusalem, Jesus, with His few faithful followers, found a temporary asylum in a strange city. He who was ever touched by human woe, who healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb, who fed the hungry and comforted the sorrowful, was driven from the people He had labored to save. He who walked upon the heaving billows, and by a word silenced their angry roaring, who cast out devils that in departing acknowledged Him to be the Son of God, who broke the slumbers of the dead, who held thousands entranced by His words of wisdom, was unable to reach the hearts of those who were blinded by prejudice and hatred, and who stubbornly rejected the light. {DA 541.4}
This is the terrible reality of the Laodicean condition--that rejection of light hardens the heart to the point that one may not respond to Christ. But if we will "come and see" for ourselves, and apply the light in regard to needing to spend this "thoughtful hour" with Jesus, He will also bless us with the experience of health reform, country living, and all the light that is FOR OUR GOOD!! I love Jesus and how personal He is, because His light is ALWAYS better than what we would choose for ourselves unaided by His perfect love and wisdom. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!