1) The Delight of Loving My Husband

“If ever two were one, then surely we;

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.” – Anne Bradstreet, 1678

If you know me well at all, you know that I am crazy about Robert!  I was crazy about him while we were dating, and I’ve only fallen more deeply in love with him over these past few years.  He is my very best friend – there is no one I’d rather do anything with.  Robert makes me laugh every day.  He is a godly man and loving leader.  And, he’s pretty fine!  As Pastor Rick Holland says, I totally trust the Lord and His plan for no marriage in Heaven…but, I do think that Robert and I might be able to sneak in a kiss or two, and maybe be neighbors or something for eternity!  But, despite all of my wonderful feelings towards my fabulous husband, we are still two married sinners.  Honestly, we’ve probably had maybe two married “fights…” but we do sin; I sin, daily.  And, that affects the way that we live together.  

In Titus 2, the younger women are admonished to love their husbands.  In Feminine Appeal, Carolyn Mahaney says that many women are able to sacrificially love their husband, all the while thinking they are a jerk; but the love we are called to here, is phileo – to enjoy and delight in them, to passionately and tenderly care for them.  In my young marriage this has not become a hardship (see aforementioned craziness about my man!), and I pray it never does.  But, also, as previously mentioned, I am a sinner.  Carolyn gives a personal example of how her sin affected her marriage, and I saw so much similarity in my own life at times.  She writes, “Sin destroyed my tender love…Anger, bitterness, criticism, pride, selfishness, fear, laziness-all vigorously opposes tender love.”    I identified with that in thinking back to a few weeks ago when I was extremely selfish…

Robert got home from class and Maggie was sleeping.  I had been wanting/needing to get my hair cut for quite some time and the salon down the street from us was having a special for new clients.  So, Robert said he would stay home with Maggie while I walked down to get my hair cut!  So, I get there, and I’m all excited with a picture of a style I’d like on my phone from Pintrest, and wouldn’t you know it, the lady told me that they were going to close early and so they weren’t taking any more customers that day!  Ah!  I was way more disappointed than I should have been.  The stylist said, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow, or this weekend?”  And I replied, “I have a three month old and home, and my husband has class all day tomorrow and he is going camping this weekend with his friends…”  What a sad story, haha.  So, I’m walking home and the discontent, selfish Ashley emerges in full force.  I started letting my mind run wild with so many things I didn’t have that I deserved or didn’t get when I was told I would – o my, even now writing about it I’m so embarrassed! But, it’s true, and maybe you’ve been there?  So, I get home, and I pull one of those quiet mood things, you know, that “I’m fine” deal.  And of course my attitude affected our whole evening until I decided to ask for forgiveness and repent of my selfishness and greed!  (Yikes, I hope you’re not judging me now.)

So, all of that to say, “Keep your heart with all vigilance” Proverbs 4:23.  She writes, “In order to cultivate and maintain a tender love for our husbands, we must guard our hearts against sin.  Our emotions are a warning system God graciously gave us to attract attention to the sin in our hearts…The more we understand the sin in our hearts, the more we appreciate the patience and mercy of God; and this, in turn, produces an attitude of humility and mercy…” (p38-9)

It’s when I sin that my relationship with Robert is most affected, not when he sins!  And, when he sins, a quote from Charles Spurgeon is helpful:

      “He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to  be anything more.  He overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case.  He does not expect perfection in the creature, and therefore, he is not disappointed  when he does not find it.”

So, in closing, I LOVE ROBERT WAUHOP and am so thankful for the gift of marriage, the grace of life, and life’s greatest earthly blessing!

Valley of Vision

God the Source of All Good

The heavens declare thy glory,
The earth thy riches,
The universe is thy temple;
Thy presence fills immensity,
Yet thou hast of thy pleasure created life,
and communicated happiness;
Thou hast made me what I am, and given me
what I have;
In thee I live and move and have my being;
Thy providence has set the bounds of my habitation,
and wisely administers all my affairs.
I thank thee for thy riches to me in Jesus,
for the unclouded revelation of him in thy Word,
where I behold his Person, character, grace, glory,
humiliation, sufferings, death, and resurrection;
Give me to feel a need of his continual saviourhood,
and cry with Job, ‘I am vile’,
with Peter, ‘I perish’,
with the publican, ‘Be merciful to me, a sinner’.
Subdue in me the love of sin,
Let me know the need of renovation as well as
of forgiveness,
in order to serve and enjoy thee for ever.
I come to thee in the all-prevailing name of Jesus,
with nothing of my own to plead,
no works, no worthiness, no promises.
I am often straying,
often knowingly opposing thy authority,
often abusing thy goodness;
Much of my guilt arises from my religious privileges,
my low estimation of them,
my failure to use them to my advantage,
But I am not careless of thy favour or regardless of
thy glory;
Impress me deeply with a sense of thine
omnipresence, that thou art about my path,
my ways, my lying down, my end.

i love CHARLES SPURGEON!!

“We are liable to worry a little when we think of our changeableness. If you are at all like me, you are very far from being always the same. I am sometimes lifted up to the very heavens, and then I go down to the deeps. I am at one time bright with joy and confidence, and at another time dark as midnight with doubts and fears. Even Elijah, who was so brave, had his fainting fits. We are to be blamed for this, and yet the fact remains: our experience is like an April day, when rain and sunshine take turns. Amid our mournful changes, we rejoice to hear the Lord’s own voice saying, ‘Fear not: for I have redeemed thee.’ Everything is not shifting waves; there is rock somewhere. Redemption is an accomplished fact. ‘The Cross, it stands fast. Hallelujah!’

The price has been paid, the ransom accepted. This has been accomplished and can never be undone. Jesus says, ‘I have redeemed thee.’ Our feelings may change, but this does not alter the fact that we have been bought with a price and made the Lord’s own by the precious blood of Jesus. The Lord God has already done so much for us that our salvation is sure in Christ Jesus. Will He begin to build, and fail to finish? Will He lay the foundation in the everlasting covenant, dedicate the walls with the infinite sacrifice of the Lamb of God, give up the choicest Treasure He ever had, the chosen and precious One of God, to be the Cornerstone and then not finish the work He has begun? No, if He has redeemed us, He has, in that act, given us the pledge of all things.

See how the gifts of God are tied to this redemption. ‘I have redeemed thee, I have called thee’ (Isa. 43:1).”

Charles Spurgeon

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Praise the Lord, right! I want to highlight every one of the sentences in that quote, because each one is so true! Spurgeon is such an encouragement to me (and I will be proud one day to name my first born son after him). This totally encouraged my soul and I hope it might do so to yours as well!

What an awesome and gracious God! Salvation is such an amazing gift and we are certainly the most blessed of all people! Praise God from whom all blessings flow, the unchanging, eternal, sovereign, and good One!

God Is So Good

God is so good,
God is so good,
God is so good,
He’s so good to me!

He cares for me,
He cares for me,
He cares for me,
He’s so good to me!

I love Him so,
I love Him so,
I love Him so,
He’s so good to me!

I praise His Name,
I praise His Name,
I praise His Name,
He’s so good to me!

It's a children's song that is so simple, but it is so true. I so often feel that as I pray in worship to the Lord that I am repeating myself and He is so bored with my praise, because it is ridiculously inadequate compared to His worthiness! What can we say to express again His loving kindness, mercy, sovereign grace, etc... WE SAY IT AGAIN, because His praise is inexhaustible! One of my favorite sermons by John Piper, himself is called God Did Not Spare His Own Son and it is AMAZING! I really encourage you to listen to it!

I am just so thankful for the Lord, what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do! I serve such a faithful God. In His infinite wisdom He knows all things and yet chooses to extend great mercy. I literally cannot fathom how God, knowing my full capacity for wickedness and my prideful, fleshly heart could love me with an eternal, perfect, redeeming love.

Basically, what I'm saying is that God is so good! And I do not say it nearyly enough - nor can I, but I will spend this life trying!

A Disciples Notebook

I literally think that this is the best blog that I read! A Disciples Notebook always has encouraging and convicting and TIMELY posts. I would highly recommend reading it regularly. Can I also suggest going back to: The Way to Devotions and Stillness Before the Lord. These are excellent! What a blessing!

I really want to share this one, Completely Clean (below), though. Seriously it's so awesome to remember this truth. It's articulated by none other than the amazing C.H. Spurgeon, and it really makes my heart swell with joy and hope in the Lord!

Completely Clean
Posted by jerrywhite on Feb 3, 2011

Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”
John 13:10 (ESV)

~~~

“It may encourage you to call to mind the people who were praised. They were not cherubim and seraphim, but men, and notably they were men filled with weakness. There was Peter, who a few minutes afterward was brash and presumptuous. But it is not necessary to name them one by one, for they all forsook their Master and fled in His hour of peril. Not one among them was more than a mere child in grace. They had little about them that was apostolic except their commission. They were very evidently men who had the same passions that we do, yet their Lord declared them to be clean, and clean they were.

This is nourishment for those souls who are hungering for righteousness and worrying because they feel so much of the burden of indwelling sin: cleanliness before the Lord is not destroyed by our sins and weaknesses or prevented by our inward temptations. We stand in the righteousness of Another. No amount of personal weakness, spiritual anxiety, soul conflict, or mental agony can mar our acceptance in the Beloved. We may be weak infants or wandering sheep, and for both reasons we may be very far from what we wish to be. But, as God sees us, we are viewed as washed in the blood of Jesus, and we, even we, are ‘clean every whit.’

What a forcible expression, ‘clean every whit’—every inch, from every point of view, in all respects, and to the uttermost degree! Dear friend, if you are a believer, this fact is true even for you. Do not hesitate to drink of it, for it is water out of your own well, given to you in the covenant of grace. Do not think that it is presumptuous to believe this statement, as marvelous as it is. You are dealing with a wonderful Savior, who only does wonderful things. Therefore, do not stand back on account of the greatness of the blessing, but rather believe even more readily because the message is so similar to every thing the Lord says or does.”

Charles Spurgeon

Joy In Christ’s Presence, 167-168

Thoughts on Thanks

A few excerpts from Choosing Gratitude:

"Gratitude is...a choice that requires constantly renewing my mind with the truth of God's Word, setting my heart to savor God and His gifts, and disciplining my tongue to speak words that reflect His goodness and grace - until a grateful spirit becomes my reflexive response to all of life"

It is interesting, yet so true, to think of gratitude not as a feeling, but a command and a discipline! Thinking this way makes my thankfulness a much bigger issue throughout my day!

"The true glory and the transforming power of gratitude are reserved for those who know and acknowledge the Giver of every good gift and who are recipients of His redeeming grace"

How true. We overlook God's common graces to all, every day! What an even greater tragedy to neglect His gift of salvation which is unimaginably great! We - I am truly so blessed. My God is so good! Thank You, Lord!

From "A Disciples Notebook"

Oh for a heart to praise my God
A heart from sin set free,
A heart that’s sprinkled with the blood
So freely shed for me.

A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My dear Redeemer’s throne;
Where only Christ is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone.

A humble, lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true, and clean,
Which neither death nor life can part
From Him that dwells within.

A heart in every thought renewed
And filled with love divine;
Perfect and right, and pure and good,
A copy, Lord, of Thine.

Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart,
Come quickly from above;
Write Thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new, best name of Love.

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Dreadfully Wonderful

"There must ever be a holy fear mixed with the Christian's joy...fear without joy, is torment; and joy, without fear, would be presumption...'Blessed are all they that put their thrust in Him'...Do we trust Him? Our faith may be slender as a spider's thread, but if it be real, we are in our measure blessed...'Lord, increase our faith.'" - Charles Spurgeon, Commentary on the Psalms

The Lord has been teaching me a lot about fear, holy fear, lately. I don't think it was something I ever really thought about, at least correctly, too much. I knew the song from Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Lord is understanding." So, most obviously, I was quite unwise in not considering it too much. I loved the Lord and I trusted Him - why would I fear. The Bible, on so many occasions says that the Christian need not fear, because simply the Lord's name is a strong refuge (Prov. 18:10) and the victory is ours against Satan and his whiles (Eph. 6). I have realized, though, that those who fear the Lord little, have a little God!

God is huge. He is awesome - in every sense of the word! He is holy, and will not be sinned against. I have been reading through the Old Testament, and have seen the laws and ordinances God laid out for the children of Israel. His reasoning behind each of them compares not at all with the statement He consistently makes: "for I am the Lord your God." Done. End of story. He is God - what He does is good because He does it. His actions are just because He is just. He is the definition for those words. His love is great. His wrath is powerful. He is God!

"And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him whom, after He has killed, has the power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!" Luke 12:4-5

I think we/Me, as believers, tend to think so much about what the world thinks in our approach to the Gospel, seeing it as everything to us, but awkard or possibly inconvenient to share with a coworker or neighbor. And, we get so comfortable just living for the Lord in our fellowhip groups... But when I sit back and really think of, dwell on the character of my God - my eyes well up with tears, my heartbeat increases, and I even get a little sweaty. I can only help but cry out like the tax collector, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" (Lk. 18:13). Consider God's truth. His attributes. the Cross. Salvation, Election, Sin...Heaven and Hell - eternity! My mind cannot comprehend all of that, let alone be unaffected by it.

In light of all of that, GRACE! I feel like I always come back to grace. My whole life is but God's grace. I cannot explain it, and I surely do not deserve it.

Now, back to Spurgeon: fear and joy. They seem an unlikely pair. (at least to me)

Psalms 2:11, 12b, "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling...Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

To fear the Lord, alone, is terrifying. Without the joy of His grace and mercy and love there is only His holiness of which I fall so desperately short and His eternal wrath is all that there is after this earth. On the other hand, joy, alone, allows me to presume upon the Lord and abuse His grace. Forget that my life is His, bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20) So, we serve Him, because He is God and He is worthy! We rejoice in Him, because despite His awesomeness and our undeservedness, He loved us first! It is vital that as believers we look to our Savior as God! Without Him we will surely perish. By His grace, we are saved. It is a dreadfully wonderful concept

"Blessed are all those who put their thrust in Him." - Lord, increase our faith!

Pray Without Ceasing

Charles Spurgeon on Prayer:
"There are two prayers always worth praying, 'Lord, show me myself,' and 'Lord,
show me thyself.' May both be heard, and you will be well taught of God!"

"We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He
intended to be conspicuous in our lives. If He has said much about prayer, it is
because He knows we have much need of it."

"Did not our Saviour say that “men ought always to pray, and not to faint;” and did he not imply, by that form of expression, that, if they did not pray, they would be sure to faint?"

"A sigh, a sob, is the most you can get out. But a mother would sooner hear her own
child sob than another child sing. There is a music about that dear child’s voice
that moves her heart and touches her spirit. And so the inward moanings of a
broken heart are music in the ears of the Infinite Jehovah, and he accepteth the
sincere prayers of his people, let them be as broken as they may."

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Our God is so faithful to hear our prayers, Christ is so gracioust to intercede on our behalf, and the Spirit is so persistent in making our need for it known.

James 5:16b, "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."
Thankfully, as I am His, Christ's righteousness is mine; and the God of all creation, King of Kings, Lord of Lords knows my heart and hears my prayers!