People today are fighting the temptations of a new economy. With Twitter and TikTok a click away, we need self-control to get anything done. There’s an explosion of new movements and techniques to fight procrastination, from Pomodoro (which gives you timed breaks when your tomato-shaped kitchen timer runs out) to self-help books and subreddits.
Commendations to you, dear writer. This was good and profitable. Such a winding path from ancient earnest believers to modern-day techniques that attempt the same process but often miss and even criticize the goal. From reading The Valley of Vision I know of the Puritans' deep awareness of sin. At first I thought wow! this is over the top, but then I realized God's great grace in making them so self-aware because it kept them closer to Him, and we are indeed all the chiefs of sinners. They well knew that small sins lead to big ones. We struggle, but God is always with us and gracious. As a Calvinist, I know I'm going to sin, and as one who is in Christ I know my God is faithful to preserve me until the day of Christ. The Puritan feared complacency just as we moderns do and probably much more staunchly, but also knew His God was sovereign and would ultimately sustain him even as he made the effort (weak as it was for him and is for us) to love Him with his whole heart, mind, soul and strength. So much paradox in the Christian life, but God knows the way we take and whose we are. Our efforts are so often failures but He is always faithful. It all depends on Him not on us but we must walk as if it does depend on us. I am reminded of "Come, thou fount of every blessing", the 3rd verse:
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
Love bound the Puritans to God just as it binds us. It's the strongest fetter because, of course, He first loved us.
When powerless vs the inner or the outer chains you retreat:
into comfort, ease, fabricated bliss
into lie, dream, unreal
into unnatural, old and dead
But comfort is a short lie, lie is unnatural state, unnatural state is not humane nor real.
What's human is the truth, what's human comes from natural, what's natural is your teacher and your trial.
In natural we grow, from natural we come, in natural we end, natural us we defend.
In nature we find the truth, in nature is the power of the world, in nature body thrives in nature of it to live and die.
In healthy body healthy mind, in trained organ trained skill as well as will.
To become oneself oneself is asked alone.
No whisper or sweet poison can help a soul that's torn. Except silence.
No food or water can satiate a drugged one.
Except fast.
No book made up nor foreign song will bring you back to where you belong by oldest right
by birth,
by DNA,
by bloodlink
& will of shadows of the lucky winners
cheering you as you already are one of them,
them in one, new one from them.
Those with longest lives living happy and in nature. What's real is where we came from not where went from there.
As ancient Etopians laughing from Egyptian slaves on throne. Eat true meat drink true milk. Become a human again. Your kingdom is everywhere you look along with your friendly kings in pack.
Well, my comment is apparently lost. Can't reproduce it. Suffice to say, I was commending you, dear writer, on this good and profitable piece of writing. I hope it proves that you are in Christ. It seems to me that it does, considering its affinity to the Puritans. God's grace and peace to you always.
Commendations to you, dear writer. This was good and profitable. Such a winding path from ancient earnest believers to modern-day techniques that attempt the same process but often miss and even criticize the goal. From reading The Valley of Vision I know of the Puritans' deep awareness of sin. At first I thought wow! this is over the top, but then I realized God's great grace in making them so self-aware because it kept them closer to Him, and we are indeed all the chiefs of sinners. They well knew that small sins lead to big ones. We struggle, but God is always with us and gracious. As a Calvinist, I know I'm going to sin, and as one who is in Christ I know my God is faithful to preserve me until the day of Christ. The Puritan feared complacency just as we moderns do and probably much more staunchly, but also knew His God was sovereign and would ultimately sustain him even as he made the effort (weak as it was for him and is for us) to love Him with his whole heart, mind, soul and strength. So much paradox in the Christian life, but God knows the way we take and whose we are. Our efforts are so often failures but He is always faithful. It all depends on Him not on us but we must walk as if it does depend on us. I am reminded of "Come, thou fount of every blessing", the 3rd verse:
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
Love bound the Puritans to God just as it binds us. It's the strongest fetter because, of course, He first loved us.
When powerless vs the inner or the outer chains you retreat:
into comfort, ease, fabricated bliss
into lie, dream, unreal
into unnatural, old and dead
But comfort is a short lie, lie is unnatural state, unnatural state is not humane nor real.
What's human is the truth, what's human comes from natural, what's natural is your teacher and your trial.
In natural we grow, from natural we come, in natural we end, natural us we defend.
In nature we find the truth, in nature is the power of the world, in nature body thrives in nature of it to live and die.
In healthy body healthy mind, in trained organ trained skill as well as will.
To become oneself oneself is asked alone.
No whisper or sweet poison can help a soul that's torn. Except silence.
No food or water can satiate a drugged one.
Except fast.
No book made up nor foreign song will bring you back to where you belong by oldest right
by birth,
by DNA,
by bloodlink
& will of shadows of the lucky winners
cheering you as you already are one of them,
them in one, new one from them.
Those with longest lives living happy and in nature. What's real is where we came from not where went from there.
As ancient Etopians laughing from Egyptian slaves on throne. Eat true meat drink true milk. Become a human again. Your kingdom is everywhere you look along with your friendly kings in pack.
Who lives naturally has no unnatural struggles.
> A much-mocked recent tweet said
More accurately, it made Twatterheads seethe. If anything, that's a plus!
Well, my comment is apparently lost. Can't reproduce it. Suffice to say, I was commending you, dear writer, on this good and profitable piece of writing. I hope it proves that you are in Christ. It seems to me that it does, considering its affinity to the Puritans. God's grace and peace to you always.