Читать книгу Consider the Lilies - Alfreda "Oko" Martin - Страница 14

A New Beginning

May this year bring all the special things your heart is hoping for, and may His blessings and love be yours for evermore.

January closes the pages on last year, with its heartaches, trials and sorrows, as well as its pleasures and joys. The Christian can say "Hitherto hath the Lord led me," and rejoice, for "all things work together for good to them that love God." (Romans 8:28)

In Japan, New Year's Day is the big day of the year. All debts should have been paid (although the installment plan is changing this), and everyone automatically becomes one year older. At every street corner are special decorations of three large bamboo poles, wrapped around with pine branches and straw rope. The Japanese have a saying which means "Oh! It's good and it's bad. It's good to see the holiday season again, but it also means I'm one year nearer hell!"

The greatest event in your life this coming year (if you have not been "born again") would be your becoming a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!"

It takes a new You to make a New Year

JANUARY

Place two needle-point holders in the vase: one in the back section, the other in the left-front corner.

Place branch 1 in center-back of the first holder; branch 2 goes left-front of branch 1, and is pulled to 45° (see p. 97). Put branch 3 in the front holder, and pull to right-front down over the vase.

Helpers A and B are placed behind branch 3, bringing the two sections together.

Place carnations as shown.

Materials used:

Juniper pine

Red carnations

A New Beginning

Seeing an unused Bible in his home, a small boy asked his mother whose book it was. "It is God's book," she said. "Well," replied the boy, "don't you think we should return it? Nobody seems to read it."

This year may we have fewer dusty Bibles.

"Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you."

—I Peter 5:7

This year remember—it matters to Him about you.

Be not troubled with thought of the morrow,

Of duties you surely must do,

On the Lord cast thy burden of sorrow,

It matters to Him about you!

Be not weary when trials are given,

But trust Him to carry you through,

He will make all a pathway to Heaven,

It matters to Him about you!

Be patient until his appearing,

'Tis dawn almost now, on your view.

The mists of this dark age are clearing,

He is planning in love about you!

And thus the year I now begin

A happy one will be,

If I am seeking just to do

The thing that pleaseth Thee!

JANUARY

Place branch 1 in holder and pull to 45°. Branch 2, a peeled-root, should hang over the rim of the vase.

A cluster of lilies, 3, is placed to go through the root openings, facing in different directions. Add helper A at 75°.

Materials used:

Magnolia

Peeled root

Lilies

A New Beginning

The present moment flies,

And bears our life away;

Oh, make Thy servants truly wise,

That they may live today!

The New Year lies before you

Like a spotless tract of snow.

Be careful how you tread it,

For every mark will show.

He who provides for his life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.

JANUARY

Even though this is considered a tall-vase arrangement, the mouth of the vase is large enough to hold a needlepoint holder.

In center-back of the holder place a black hanging vine, 1, with the tip hanging slightly to the left.

Place white-rolled stems 2 to come up from the center.

Place short black stem 3 to the right-front.

Fill in the background with scarlet flax, and add helpers as shown.

Materials used:

Black hanging vine

White rolled stems

Scarlet flax

Prayer

I never prayed sincerely for anything, but it came, at some time, somehow, in some shape.

—Adoniram Judson

Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our argument, despise our persons—but they are helpless against our prayers.

—Sidlow Baxter

The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayer-less work. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.

—Samuel Chadwick

God sets more value on prayer and communion than labor. The Heavenly Bridegroom is wooing a wife, not hiring a servant . . . Prayer brings God out of His secret place to work wonders in the earth, to pour Himself through the believer into a world of lost souls.

—A. W. Roffe

"Too busy to pray!" You might as well say "Too busy to live."

Prayer is not lost time. It is living itself. It is that without which no time is saved, but all time is saved, but no time is lost. It conserves time, making it valuable and effective.

I have so much to do (today) that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.

—Martin Luther

FEBRUARY

An unusual Valentine arrangement.

Strip the ferns of all inside leaves, place them together at the bottom, and push them into the center of the needlepoint holder. Put in a tall cat-tail branch, 1, at a slightly diagonal angle. Bend the tips of the ferns to form a heart-shape, and wire them in that position on to the cat-tail branch. This makes 2.

Place the tallest rose, 3, as in the diagram, and add helpers A, B and C. Cover the holder with pebbles.

Materials used:

Cat-tails

Palm ferns

Red roses

Pebbles

Prayer

A young preacher had just settled in his first pastorate in Philadelphia when he was visited by one of the laymen in his Church.

The man said bluntly to him "You are not a strong preacher. In the usual order of things, you will fail here. But a little group of us has agreed to gather every Sunday morning to pray for you."

The young man saw that group of people grow to more than one thousand, praying weekly for their pastor.

The minister was J. Wilber Chapman, who became one of the greatest preachers America has ever known.

Prayer isn't so much the getting of the answer, as it is a getting hold upon the God who answers prayer.

A four-year-old was spending the night away from home. At bedtime she knelt at her hostess's knee to say her prayers, expecting the usual prompting. Finding Mrs. B. unable to help, the little girl concluded thus: "Please God, 'scuse me. I can't remember my prayers, and I'm staying with a lady who don't know any."

The heart that prays soars high on strong, glad wings, And finds repose beyond earth's rending things.

FEBRUARY

If a basket is used for this arrangement, place the needle-point holder in a low dish inside the basket.

Spike 1 goes in the center-back of the holder. Leaf 2 is put in the left-front corner at 45°. Branch 3, in the right-front corner, comes forward at 90°.

Add helpers of spike, leaf and foliage as shown.

Materials used:

Solomon's seal

Pointed leaves

Prayer

There is one thing more pitiable, almost worse, than cold atheism; to kneel and say "Our Father," and say "I believe in God the Father Almighty," and then to go on fretting and fearing, saying "I believe in the love of God! But its stop is only in Heaven. I believe in the power of God! But it stoppeth short at the stars. I believe in the providence of God! But it is limited to the saints of Scriptures. I believe that the Lord reigneth! Only with reference to some far-off time, with which we have nothing to do."

That is more insulting to our Heavenly Father, more harmful to the world, more cheating to ourselves, than to have no God at all. We take our burdens to the Lord—but do we leave them there?

The story is told of the late General Gordon that each morning for about a half hour there would be lying outside his tent a white handkerchief. The whole camp came to know what that meant, and looked upon the little signal with the utmost respect. No foot dared pass the threshold of that "canvas tabernacle" while the handkerchief was spread there. No message, however pressing, was ever delivered. Even matters of life and death had to wait until that "white flag of prayer" was taken away. Everyone in the camp knew that God and Gordon were communing together.

Put the little white handkerchief of the "quiet hour" outside your heart's door once each day, and then draw near to God in prayer, worship, and adoration. You will find your heart warmed, and your soul reinforced for the duties of life.

"Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee; He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved."

—psalm 55: 22

FEBRUARY

Wire a group of slender stems together, and press into holder at center-back to make 1. Place leaf 2 in front of 1, with its tip going 45° to the left.

Bunch loosely, and wire together, about 15 small chrysanthemums to make 3. Cut off extra stems, and lay them facing forward to cover the rim of the vase. Two helpers, A and B, complete the arrangement.

Materials used:

Black and white stems

Black aspidistra leaves

Small white chrysanthemums

Salvation

These words from an ancient church wall motto show Christ as a Judge, and will help us evaluate the sincerity of our words:

Thus speaketh Christ our Lord to us:

Ye call Me Master, and obey Me not:

Ye call Me light, and see Me not:

Ye call Me way, and walk Me not:

Ye call Me life, and desire Me not:

Ye call Me wise, and follow Me not:

Ye call Me eternal, and seek Me not:

Ye call Me Gracious, and trust Me not:

Ye call Me noble, and serve Me not:

Ye call Me mighty, and honor Me not:

Ye call Me just, and fear Me not:

If I condemn you, blame Me not.

This is an age of learning. If a man has not learning he is nothing. To be esteemed in this world, we must lean science, learn languages, learn painting, learn music. Fo every kind of learning is prized today except learning Christ.

All around us there are those who are considered "well educated," who have never been in the school of God and those who are said to be "finished," who have no yet had their first lesson in the heart school of Jesus. Yet this is the only learning that God sets any price on.

"Let him that Glorieth, glory in this, that... he knoweth me."

—Jeremiah 9: 24

Christ says "I am the Way." He does not say I know the way, or I have the way, or I show the way, or I lead the way. No, He is the Way. Those who get to heaven get there through him.