Today has been one of those days that I don’t really enjoy having. Stressful, creative inspiration not running at full steam, being mucked around by other people, and topped off with deadlines as the icing. A bit after 14:00 this afternoon I realized rather acutely that the walls of my stomach were kissing each other and set about to rectify the problem. So I’m at the sink washing some stuff and glance at some quotes that my mother has placed there…and this one jumps out at me and arrests my attention. It wasn’t that I hadn’t read it before, it was just that I hadn’t READ it before!
“God’s work of refining and purifying must go on until His servants are so humbled, so dead to self, that, when called into active service, their eye will be single to His glory. He will then accept their efforts; they will not move rashly, from impulse; they will not rush on and imperil the Lord’s cause, being slaves to temptations and passions and followers of their own carnal minds set on fire by Satan. Oh, how fearfully is the cause of God marred by man’s perverse will and unsubdued temper! How much suffering he brings upon himself by following his own headstrong passions! God brings men over the ground again and again, increasing the pressure until perfect humility and a transformation of character bring them into harmony with Christ and the spirit of heaven, and they are victors over themselves. ” – Ellen White
So, it’s back to the ministry design deadlines I go. But with a renewed awe and wonder at God for Him seeing something of worth in me and I’m praising Him for what He’s allowing to happen to refine and purify me so that I can have an eye single to His glory not mine!