Here are three things I came across this week that encouraged/challenged me.

First, I enjoyed this prayer from The Divine Hours: “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.”

Second, in thumbing through my copy of Calvin’s Institutes this week (I’m currently re-reading a section of it), I came upon this quote that I had written on a sheet of paper: “When we are unjustly wounded by men, let us overlook their wickedness (which would but worsen our pain and sharpen our minds to revenge), and remember to mount up to God, and learn to believe for certain that whatever our enemy has wickedly committed against us was permitted and sent by God’s just dispensation” (1. 17. 8).

Third, I enjoyed John Webster’s (1955–2016) sermon, “Waiting Patiently” (James 5:7–11) published in Confronted by Grace: Meditations of a Theologian. He begins like this: “Patience is the virtue in which we allow our lives to run their allotted course in their allotted time. As we exercise patience, we let our lives and the lives of others follow the path which has been laid down for them, without railing against the constraints which that imposes on us. Patience is the virtue of waiting” (211). He then concludes with these pointed words: “Patience means freedom. It means freedom from the burden of frustration and disappointment. It gives us the real, deep freedom of accepting that we are who we are and where we are, and that in those things we discover the purpose of God. It liberates us from the myth that we can flourish only if we are somehow set free from all constraints and all inhibitions—from all those people and situations and hindrances that press in upon us” (216–217).