It’s funny how Saturdays, a day of fun and relaxation when I was young, have turned into days of busyness. Early in the day I had to put on my coach’s hat to lead my son’s team through a baseball practice. No sooner had we returned home from that than Aileen had to run my daughter to a birthday party. This afternoon will be spent, least in part, preparing lunch for a crowd we’re having back to the house tomorrow. Saturdays are a good day, to be sure, but they sure aren’t quite as empty as I remember them being as a kid.
Here’s a quote I dug up recently. It is a good one and perhaps particularly so on such a busy day. It comes from a letter missionary Robert Moffat wrote to his wife.
It was only yesterday, after laying down the Bible, that I wondered what kind of mind I would have had if I had not the Book of God, the Book containing the astounding idea of ‘from everlasting to everlasting,’ the development of all that is worth knowing … One would think, that as I have critically and, I think, devoutly read and examined every verse, every word in the Bible, some a score of times over, I should not require to open the pages of that unspeakable blessed Book. Alas, for the human memory! I read the Bible today with the same feeling I ever did, like the hungry when seeking food, the thirsty when seeking drink, the bewildered when seeking counsel and the mourner when seeking comfort. Don’t you believe all this? For alas, I read it sometimes as a formal thing, though my heart condemns me afterwards … I am yet astonished at my own ignorance of the Bible!





Comments (3) »
1. Nick Coller
July 20, 2008
12:31 AM
I saw my first baseball game tonight in Florida - the Rays versus your beloved Blue Jays. It wasn’t all that exciting for most of it - I think I may prefer cricket.
2. Tim Challies
July 20, 2008
7:15 AM
I saw my first baseball game tonight in Florida - the Rays versus your beloved Blue Jays. It wasn’t all that exciting for most of it - I think I may prefer cricket.
That’s horrifying. There is just no way that cricket is in any way superior to baseball.
3. Dave McGowan
July 20, 2008
11:02 AM
This is a great quote, Tim. I was wondering if Robert Moffatt was kin to James Moffatt, the one who wrote a controversial translation of the Bible in the 20’s. I couldn’t find a reference to it on the net, but did find out that Robert’s daughter married David Livingstone (I presume).
We in North America might like cricket if we ever saw it played, or knew what the rules were. I don’t know if it’s played in Canada very much.