In my weekly Works & Wonders article, I combine a brief devotional with other interesting and uplifting bits and pieces I gleaned throughout the week. These can be stories, poems, songs, articles, quotes, and just about anything else I found especially enjoyable in the week. I hope you enjoy this week’s collection! It includes:
- Works without Wonder
- “We Are Thankful”
- Captain Rostron’s Night Out
- Speed Puzzling
- Held in the Light
- “Oh! To Be Ready”
- Piano Sketches
1.
Devotional: Works without Wonder
If we are meant to find great joy and true delight in God, why is it that some religious people appear so joyless? Why are there some who seem to do little more than go through the motions of religion but without any spirit, any zeal, any fervor? Vance Havner points us in the right direction when he writes of work that is without wonder. “Nothing else under the sun can be as dry, flat, tedious and exhausting as religious work without the wonder,” he says. Our service for God will either flow out of an understanding of grace or an assumption of merit. We will either work from the favor of God or for it. And nothing will prove more discouraging than losing the wonder of grace and instead laboring to try to win the favor of God. It is grace—unmerited divine favor—that kindles our joy, and it is grace that keeps the fires burning warm within our hearts. “A true believer looks on religion, not as a burden which he must be forced to endure, but a privilege which is his happiness to enjoy,” says Andrew Gray. It can be enjoyable and bring happiness to our souls only as long as it is marked and motivated by grace.
2.
We Are Thankful
What is the right response to grace? Gratitude! And that’s what this new song from Sovereign Grace Music is all about.
For goodness and for mercy that has surely followed us
And every blessing we could never earn
For all the gifts we cherish that are pictures of Your love
What could we ever offer in return?
3.
Captain Rostron’s Night Out
I guess a tragedy like the sinking of the Titanic isn’t the kind of material I typically feature in this column. However, I enjoyed this telling of one of the heroes of the night of April 15, 1912: Arthur Rostron. Rostron was captain of the Carpathia, the ship that rescued all 705 of Titanic’s survivors. As far as I know, Rostron was a devout man.
As a boy, Rostron attended a Church of England day school, and he was marked all through his life as a religious man who neither smoked nor drank. “A sailor has his faith,” Rostron remarked, “he lives so close to nature, there are times when he feels in touch with the infinite.”⁷ And as the Carpathia drove through the night, eventually dodging icebergs from the same field of floating ice that claimed the Titanic, Rostron’s Second Officer, James Bisset, noticed his captain standing beside him on Carpathia’s bridge, with “his cap raised a little from his brow, and his lips moving in silent prayer.”⁸ Afterwards, casting his eye over that lethal expanse of bergs, ‘growlers,’ and pack ice, Rostron admitted that he “shuddered, and could only think that some other Hand than mine was on that helm during the night.”
You can read more at The Golden Thread.
4.
Speed Puzzling
I can’t keep up with all the things, so I was surprised to learn that there is such a thing as speed puzzling. I rather enjoyed reading this account of a recent speed puzzling championship.
PhD student in Berkeley. A 12-year-old in Texas. A content creator in Washington. An undergrad at Stanford. A former math teacher turned homeschool mom in Texas. After a three-day competition in Atlanta, Georgia, these people became national champions for a burgeoning hobby: speed jigsaw puzzling.
I have been a lifelong jigsaw puzzle lover. But in recent years, I have observed the quintessential way to slowly pass time transform into a competitive sport. So I traveled to the USA Jigsaw Nationals to test my skill against the best puzzlers in the country.
The competitive aspect of jigsaw puzzling dates back to the 1980s in the US, when Hallmark ran a national competition for several years. In 2022, the volunteer-run USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association (USAJPA) partnered with Ravensburger, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of jigsaw puzzles, to bring back a national championship.
Click here to keep reading. The article is at The Guardian and, as far as I can tell, is not behind a paywall.
5.
Held in the Light
Ray Majoran is an Ontario-based Christian photographer who has a special fascination with the northern lights. He features his own photography and other people’s in his Glimpse of Infinity newsletter, which you may enjoy subscribing to. With every photo, he is sure to give praise to God for the beauty of his creation. Here is one of my favorites from his gallery.
6.
Oh! To Be Ready
I often comb through old anthologies of poems looking for works I have never read before. I recently found one titled “Oh! To Be Ready” that was attributed to an anonymous poet. I appreciate its longing to be ready to hasten home.
Oh! to be ready when death shall come!
Oh! to be ready to hasten home!
No earthward clinging, no lingering gaze,
No strife at parting, no sore amaze,
No chains to sever what earth has twined,
No spell to loosen what love would bind.No flitting shadows to dim the light
Of the angel-pinions winged for flight,
No cloud-like phantoms to fling a gloom
‘Twixt Heaven’s bright portals and earth’s dark tomb;
But sweetly, gently, to pass away
From the world’s dim twilight into day.To list the music of angel lyres,
To catch the rapture of seraph tires,
To lean in trust on the risen One,
Until borne away to a fadeless throne.
Oh! to be ready when death shall come!
Oh! to be ready to hasten home!
(The word “tires” is an antiquated form of “attire,” I believe.)
7.
Piano Sketches
If you’d like some mellow instrumental music, whether to sing along to or to just have in the background, you won’t do much better than these Easter Piano Sketches from the Gettys.
