Hello there, this is my first post on my new blog. The general idea is to let people in my church know what I get up to in the week, and to post occasional musings and comments. But first a word about the really long title...
What's in a name? That which we call a blog by any other word would smell as sweet. (I know blogs don't smell but Shakespeare said it so there.)
Well I've given this name to my blog because it's a quote from the eighteenth century pioneer missionary David Brainerd. It's also the title of John Piper's chapter on him from the great book 'Tested By Fire'. When I read it as a student I was really taken by Brainerd's refusal to settle for anything less than meeting with God and his determination not to waste his life. I guess it's a phrase that has stuck in my head, and it's a challenge to me. So often I find my self settling, and need to be reminded of the type of holy discontented-ness Brainerd had. Here's the quote in full from 'Tested By Fire' p122. It's taken from Brainerd's Diary :
'When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of him the more insatiable, and my thirstings after holiness the more unquenchable....Oh, for holiness! Oh fir more of God in my soul! Oh this pleasing pain!It makes my soul press after God...Oh that I may feel this continual hunger, and not be retarded, but animated by every "cluster from Canaan" to reach forward in the narrow way, for the full enjoyment and possession of the heavenly inheritance. Oh that I might never loiter on my heavenly journey!'.
