GroshLink

In the Solomon Islands we have very broken English. They can't say "God bless you very much," but they say "God bless you too much," which means God bless you so much you can't contain it all so that it must run over into somebody's else life.

How can I be such a person? How can I be a living Bible? How can I exemplify the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, that when I'm provoked something worthwhile will spill out?

You see, it's in our unguarded moments that the world will judge us, not when we are in our best clothes on Sunday and on our best behaviour.

If I couldn't control my temper as well as the old schooner I lived on for nineteen years in the Solomons, then some fool would make sure that I let go of the wrong rope, and we'd let the mainsail down with a crash on the deck, And someone would say, "My word, the doctor, he talk one way, but live another way." It's our unguarded moments we must watch. But it's only the Holy Spirit who can watch. And as He has thus gained control of us only so can we be kept and be living epistles worth reading.

Excerpt from Bear in your Body the Marks (1951): Part 3 in a 4-part series from Urbana 51.

Father, grant me the grace that by your Spirit I may bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus in the home, ministry, and conversations that you have set before me.