When Jonah saw the rising and tempestuous storm there was an immediate sense of powerlessness. The ship was “like to be broken,” says the author. Jonah’s entire wandering episode was about to get mighty worse. The Psalmist knew that there is no place he can hide from God’s Spirit, and Jonah became another example of self-deception. We know we cannot hide but this does not impede us from finding the deepest cave or the vast ocean as refuge. We seek shelters outside God’s protective wings.
The lessons for us in this season are similar. Cycles of history come and go and we often refuse to learn from them. What do we do when we convince ourselves we can distance enough from God? What do we do when our navigational capacities blind us to the ability of the all-seeing God to find us? In typical fashion, we victimize our status and use it as a justification for our wandering. “I only did it because I needed time away;” or “I need some time to think about what God truly wants for me.”
It’s crucial for us to see that the biblical characters rarely if ever failed to know precisely what God wanted. Similarly, we know what God desires of us in this season. We don’t fail because we can’t see what God is communicating, we fail because God has communicated and we can’t accept the demands on us. Thus, we seek out alternative plans hoping that God would nod in agreement.
But God is not a fool. He is not mocked which is a short way of saying God does not take shortcuts to dissect you. He prefers to carefully observe your ways and see how far you are willing to stray and how long it will take you to call on his name. The reason God does not judge you immediately when you get on that boat to a place far away is that you would learn your lesson without much knowledge gained. You must get on the boat and believe that you are truly distancing yourself from the God who comes near; to trust in your escape routes among the prostitutes of the prodigal or waves of waywardness. God waits to see your ship almost breaking to act. He waits in perfectly executed timing for you to see the cause and effect of your sins, to be at the mercy of pagan mariners. Then, God pierces your soul like a two-edged sword and meticulously brings you back to life like a skilled surgeon.
We are powerless creatures. We cannot control the next second. There are no shortcuts to righteousness but only the hard work towards long obedience. We live in days where people all around are sleeping in ships near destruction. Yet, they sleep comfortably unaware that the waves will crash a little harder each time until the damage is too great.
Every situation provides opportunities to understand a little better our journeys. And we can only learn if we too picked up lessons while on the boat. We may not find refuge in a pig’s den often, but we are too comfortable navigating ourselves towards that hideous smell. We need a richer appetite for the Father’s table. Ultimately, we need to take seriously our steps and choose the hard road of obedience instead of the slippery steps of Sheol.
Another week begins, and the topic is universally the
same in coffee shops (if you still frequent those), the workplace and worship
spaces. The #Coronavirusis trending more frequently than your
favorite five celebrities put together. Our culture has exchanged TMZ stories
for the primacy of the geeks who once made their living in the privacy of their
laboratory. These are now our modern-day celebrities. It’s safe to say the
experts surrounding this topic will probably consume the news cycle for the
foreseeable future.
Since this is the general trend, Christians must ask,
“How now shall we live?” Recently, I encouraged pastors to preach the Word on
the Lord’s Day without allowing the trends to dictate the church’s agenda. The
Church should be the last place where people come to educate themselves about
any virus or plague. The church should be that one place where we immunize
ourselves against such cultural ubiquity. What the church must provide in this
time is a heavenly normalcy that affords Christians a glimpse into the holy as
they experience the unholy of disease and death in the world.
Whatever the future holds, and I forbid myself from
acting like a prophetic epidemiologist, we know that the future belongs to
Jesus. After all, he has lived and reigned over every imaginable pestilence and
plague throughout history. He was Lord then and is Lord now. Christians often
forget that reality in times of crisis. It is a real danger. There is no more
excellent opportunity to flex our monergistic muscles than a scenario where we
envision ourselves as experts and when we can quietly act as lords over human
despair.
Of course, it is right and prudent to take measures,
but it is even more crucial to take good and necessary measures towards our
daily actions and reactions; to honestly examine ourselves in Lenten fashion to
see if we are living as Christ would have us in our day. One inevitable
temptation is the predicament of tomorrow. The anxious person will worry about
everything until he gets one thing right. He will worry about a thousand
things, and when that worry is finally validated, he will use that event to
justify his fears about the next thousand things. It’s an unhappy cycle. If the
things of today are sufficient (Mat. 6), then there are sufficient things to
occupy our faith today. In sum, opportunities abound in living out our faith in
times of peril. Our habits and rituals can be changed; our view of the world
and others can change, and we can discover in such a time of transition that
our priorities have been wrong for a long time.
In many ways, we lived exilically before any of this
came into being. But back then, there was no all-consuming Corona-Virus news;
there was just the mundane. Back then, many of us lived flippantly and
apathetic toward our Christian rituals. Times of peace more often than not
provide rationales for complacency. Thus, in times of uncertainty, we must remember
that usually, the best period for the church to sharpen and hone her worship
skills and practices is now. Biblical history bears this out. We can think of
Israel’s wilderness wandering as a time of exile. Israel had left Egypt and was
preparing to enter the Promised Land. But what was Israel doing for those 40
years? She didn’t have any real cultural influence since she had no homeland.
She was just a nomadic community moving through the wilderness without the
certainty of tomorrow. Still, faithful Israelites carried the tabernacle with
them through the desert so that corporate worship became their constant focus.
While we may not know what tomorrow brings, we do know who controls time and space and viruses. For the Christian, this is truly an opportunity for communities to find refuge in one true city. Whether we are worshipping together or in limited numbers in seven days, God’s gift of worship is ours. Whether in exile, free from alarm, or in between the times, worship is always ultimate. So, let the Christian see that the only worthy trend in this world is not the #Coronavirus but the worship of the Triune God.
It was a typical morning for my tribe. When I returned from the gym, it was still early. But my boys are ready to take on the day with zeal. We went for a walk around our peaceful neighborhood. The young warriors carried their sticks as a precautionary measure against wild creatures. As we leisurely strolled, we began singing through the Lord’s Prayer. “Deliver us from evil…” we roared. It’s a piece we sing every Lord’s Day and often at the dinner table, but this morning it took on a special significance.
Which Evil?
In our day, the natural evil in our minds is the Covid-19 with its aggressive demeanor towards the elderly and sometimes its fatal blow towards unexpected recipients. It’s all over ESPN at the gym, and it’s the featured article in any major newspaper. Its ubiquitous nature is obnoxious but expected. We live in an interconnected state of the human era. We may debate the hype or the unorthodox enthusiasm of the media, but the reality is we do not know what next week will look like for any community.
But is that truly the only evil of our day we sang
against this morning in our casual adventure? I believe there is something more
subtle than what this pandemic brings. It may take different shapes, but its
root is the oft obligatory “social distancing” experts are encouraging. That’s
a significant threat in this Corona Virus age. In the 14th century,
there was a plague outbreak in Florence, Italy. Renaissance author Giovanni Boccaccio noted:
Florentines “dropped dead in open streets, both by day and by night, whilst a great many others, though dying in their own houses, drew their neighbours’ attention to the fact more by the smell of their rotting corpses.”a
We can safely say it was a deeper plague than anything we are currently experiencing and probably will experience. But the results of such destructive forces led to another epidemic, the one of isolation. Boccaccio goes on to argue for the importance of preserving social forces and traditions even when the higher forces wish to de-activate our social practices, or we might say, those things which make us human.
Social Distancing vs. Scriptural Sociology
At this moment, people of all evangelical persuasions
are likely downplaying the self-quarantine incentive viewing it as a necessary
step towards the eradication of this virus and self-preservation. There is a
clear sense that in times of societal upheaval, we must do whatever it takes.
But this shouldn’t close our eyes to the consequences of isolating ourselves
from one another and our communities.
Should this pandemic force us into these isolated
environments, we need to be thoughtful about this new sociological phase of
history. The Scriptures are unwavering about the necessity of community and
social gatherings. Social distancing is the antithesis of the Scriptural
imperative. Even if necessary, we should grieve over it. Some appear to praise
social distancing as a noble gesture in an enlightened culture. Church
cancellations, colleges moving to on-line venues, sports events, and concerts
are now entering into unchartered territory with indefinite postponements.
Again, all good and necessary, but have we counted the cost of such actions?
God is not mentioned in the book of Esther. What does that mean? Why does a book of the Bible not mention God? While this can seem mysterious, the reality is that God is not absent in the story at all. He is all over it. In fact, the better way to describe it is that He is the main character. While there are lots of people acting in the story, no one character in the story is moving the story forward. Through the events of the story, we see that God is the one who is making everything happen. In this way, each character in the story is really more of a side character upstaged by God performing his sovereign plan.
God’s Plan
God’s sovereign design is emphasized at the beginning with Vashti refusing to obey the king’s request at his feast. If Vashti had not done this, then the rest of the story would not have happened. While Vashti was acting on her own account, God removed Vashti in order to make way for Esther.
When looking at Esther’s rise, we see that she did not choose to be queen. God put her there. And this position was not particularly nice. She was chosen by the king as an object to gratify his desires. But Esther did not remain passive in this event, rather she attempts to gain the king’s favor by following the advice of Hegai about what to take in with her to the king. But even this highlights that her role of queen was not her choice but one that was given to her. Which is to say, God turned the heart of the king to make her queen.
We see God’s sovereignty in Mordecai also. The story notes that he was from the tribe of Benjamin. This reference highlights and draws us back to other stories about Benjamin. One important story in Israel’s history is the story of King Saul who is also from the tribe of Benjamin. The story of Esther notes that Haman is an Agagite. While Haman may or may not be a direct descendant of King Agag whom King Saul fails to kill, the story of Esther does suggest that this story is at least an echo of that earlier story. God is at work telling a similar story through Mordecai. While Mordecai is a kind of Saul, called to defeat the wicked Haman, he actually does very little to bring this about. Mordecai angers Haman and that is about all he does. The real cause of Haman’s downfall is designed by God who is orchestrating the events.
Christians should know how to keep Sabbath. I am not saying this the way that some in our culture would say it. Some people say we need more rest because we are too busy, living crazy, distracted lives. These people suggest we need to do some yoga and find our inner guru stillness. That is not what I am talking about. I am suggesting that we are not doing enough with Sabbath. What we really need is to Sabbath harder. By that, I mean we need to have a better understanding and vision for Sabbath. This means we have more to do, not less.
In the fourth commandment, God commands his people to rest. He says work on six days and then rest on the seventh. This is a command. This is not an option. While it might seem like a command will dampen our joy, the reality is that obedience brings great joy and peace. This command is a wonderful gift so that we have one day out of seven to rest. This Sabbath rest is a gift to us because we are reminded what our rest should be founded on. It should be founded on something that God has done, not something we have done.
In Deuteronomy 5, it says that the Sabbath day is a memorial for what God has done for his people: once they were slaves in Egypt and God brought them out with his mighty hand. God has done this great work and so the people need to rest. In the new covenant, we celebrate and remember God’s work on Sunday, the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead. Our Sabbath rest is on the first day of the week because our lives are oriented around the Gospel. God has done a great work for us and we are to reflect and remember and celebrate that work. This is something American Christians need to do more.
Eric Liddell and Sabbath
The story of Eric Liddell is a wonderful lesson of how to Sabbath harder. In 1924, Eric was a runner who was going to compete in the 100m event at the Olympics in Paris. However, that year the 100m event was held on a Sunday. So Eric switched events, changing over to the 400m event. Eric refused to run on Sunday because he knew that was against God’s law. He honored God above men. Eric knew of the schedule issue ahead of time so he was able to train for a different event but this new event was still a huge challenge for him. It is crucial to see that while Eric honored God and kept Sabbath, this did not mean that Eric sat back and was passive about it all. Actually, he jumped in and worked harder. He trained for the 400m and he won that race.
The famous movie Chariots of Fire records the story well. The character Eric in the movie talks with his sister about being a missionary in China. He explains that he will be a missionary but that God also made him to be a runner. He says the great lines, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” In this way, we see that Eric was not a snooty sabbatarian; he truly wanted to enjoy the good gifts of God in his life. He knew that God had called him to be fast and he wanted to use that gift to honor God.
After he won the 400m, Eric explained how he had won: “The secret of my success over the 400m is that I run the first 200m as fast as I can. Then, for the second 200m, with God’s help, I run faster.”
In this quote, Liddell is not saying that he ran 50% and then God added another 50%. Rather, the whole thing was a gift of God. By God’s grace, Liddell ran the whole thing.
That is the correct vision for Sabbath rest: we need it because that is where we are reminded that we cannot do what is required. We must run and strain for the goal but we cannot get there in our own efforts. We must look to God for our strength in order to run. Paul in Romans 9:16 says it this way: “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”
Sabbath as Surrender
Later in his life, Liddell went to China to be a missionary. He followed God’s calling on his life and he worked and served there for several years. He eventually gave his life there dying in 1945 in an internment camp. His last words are recorded to be: “It’s complete surrender.”
Liddell’s last words summarize the Christian life: it is surrendering everything to God. But this surrender does not mean that we remain still and passive and don’t have anything to do. Rather, It is a complete surrender to God’s will for our lives and so this means that we work harder and longer than we ever thought possible. But this comes from God’s strength, not from us.
There are two errors in how we approach Sabbath rest. One error is to think that rest means inaction: I just sit here and do nothing. Some might erroneously encourage us to a still quietness as if our problem is that we are too busy in life. But busyness is not the problem for Christians. The reverse is more often the case: we are too lazy. So Sabbath is not about finding an inner peace or quiet. True Sabbath rest is about action.
The other error is to think that I must do everything. God might save me, but I am the one who has to run the race. So I get out my running shoes and I run. I grit my teeth and I try to run harder and faster: as if God will be more pleased with me, if I can just do more things faster. But this is wrong too. My job is not to do what I think; my job is to do what God says to do.
This means that I must obey God all the way, every day. I must obey the command to glorify God but the reality is that this command is an impossible task for me. So it is only by God’s grace that I can fulfill the task before me.
The answer then is complete surrender. We must give it all up to God. In God’s command to rest on the Sabbath, he is not saying that the other six days are ours to do with as we please. All our days belong to God. He has claimed them all. There is nothing left over for us. In turning to God, we must surrender it all to him. Then God in his grace gives us back six days to serve and obey him.
Sabbath as Launch
In this discussion, it is important to emphasize God’s grace to us. It is all grace. I am not saying that we must do our part and then God adds his part. The truth is that all of it comes from him. God gives us the task to run and we must run our best. And we run only by God’s grace. And then God takes us even farther than we thought possible. And that is by God’s grace also. When it is all done and we reach the end, we will see that we had run because we had surrendered it all to God. He will get the glory because we were merely obeying what he had told us to do.
In Luke 17, Jesus says it this way, “Does [the master] thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’” At the end, when we have run our hardest and in God’s strength we have gone even farther than we thought possible, we will say like Liddell, I didn’t do it. I just surrendered it all to God. I don’t deserve any praise. I was just doing what I was commanded to do.
In this way, we see that the Sabbath is not about us having a chance to rest or for us to get a chance to take a nap, although those things are good gifts from God. The true vision of Sabbath rest is that life is like a pole vault competition. The pole must be placed in a stationary spot, a spot that doesn’t move. This is not to keep the pole from moving, but because the pole is supposed to move. The stationary spot is the point from which something larger can be launched. Sabbath is like that spot for the pole. We set it there in God and in his great work of deliverance, and then He launches us farther than we ever thought possible.
The story of the Good Samaritan is well-known in our culture, not just among Christians, but by everyone. We have Good Samaritan laws that protect those who help people in distress from being sued if the rescue doesn’t go well. Presidents and other politicians have referred to the story of the Good Samaritan in their speeches to encourage certain policies. Back in 2018, Nancy Pelosi recited the entire story in her eight-hour speech on the floor of Congress to promote “The Dream Act.” (https://www.christianpost.com/news/nancy-pelosi-recites-the-good-samaritan-parable-praises-evangelical-leaders-in-8-hour-speech-216989/) There is a Christian mercy ministry run by Franklin Graham called “Samaritan’s Purse.” Christians have a health insurance replacement called “Samaritan Ministries.” The story of the Good Samaritan is well-known, well-loved, and well-used.
When a story like this becomes such a common cultural fixture, it becomes easy to assume we understand the story. Our American culture has taken the story, for the most part, in a very simplistic way, reading it as if it were one of Aesop’s Fables: a story that promotes a moral. In this case, the moral is “Do good for hurting people.” This, of course, is true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. There is quite a bit more to the story.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
(Ecclesiastes 7.2, 4)
Through my fifty-one years, I have been in the house of mourning a number of times. As a grandson, I have experienced the death of grandparents. As a son, I walked through the sadness of losing my father and mother. As a pastor, I have officiated the memorial services of still-born children, adults who have lived well into their nineties, and everything in between. I have seen death surprise families, and I have watched as the coldness of death slowly crept over families. For many deaths, I have been able to stand by the bedside of the dying, talking, praying, weeping, and rejoicing with them. At other deaths, I have witnessed people hopelessly wail at the loss of a loved one. I am privileged to have visited the house of mourning quite a bit through my years to lay to heart what is the end of every man.
Recently,
I had the privilege of visiting a dying lady who is prepared to meet her Lord
and Maker. She lives with her daughter and son-in-law. She has lived a full
life. Her children and grandchildren love Jesus. She is at peace. Her slow but
sure passing from this life is a joyful time for her and her family. No, they
are not dancing. They hurt. But there is something that runs deeper than the
hurt: there is a joy that springs from the hope that they have in Christ Jesus.
She will die soon, but she will die having been recently surrounded by all of her
children and grandchildren who share her hope. She will die well. She will die
with joy.
While I
was standing by her bedside praying with her, I must admit that I was
overwhelmed with the beauty of it all, and I laid to heart, once again, my own
end. I want to die well. When the day of my death draws close, if God grants me
and my family the grace to know that it is coming, I want the fruit of my faithfulness
to Christ to surround me with that sorrowful joy; that sorrow that my family and
friends will truly miss my being with them, but the joyful hope that I am with
Christ and will be reunited with them in the future. I want to die well.
The only
way to die well is to live faithfully in the present. To live faithfully in the
present, you must keep the end in mind. That is why it is wise to spend time in
the house of mourning.
This is
your end. What are you doing today to die well?
I have had the privilege over the years to teach literature to high school students. I particularly enjoy teaching medieval literature. I come away from those years far richer than I come into them. One of the works we always read is the Song of Roland, a French ballad of chivalry written probably around the First Crusade. It provides a wonderful gateway into discussing the ideal of chivalry, where it succeeded and failed during the Middle Ages, and why it matters today.
Chivalry at its basic level is simply a code of life that defines the proper actions and responsibilities toward friend and foe, man and woman, rich and poor. It includes areas such as society, manners, justice, war. The Medieval concept of chivalry, at least in its best moments, attempted to take those virtues that are objectively defined by the revealed character of God and apply them to the various circumstances and relationships of life.
If you think back to the knightly code of medieval Europe, it would have been of the utmost importance not only for you to live by a certain code, but also to be able to rely upon those around you to live by the same code. Friendship was built upon a mutual understanding of loyalty and trust. Enemies knew the rules of engagement on the battlefield. Women knew what a gentleman looked like. Men knew what a lady looked like. Not that there weren’t imposters running about, but they were imposters because there was a standard to deceptively imitate.
The cultural prophets of the past few generations have proclaimed that chivalry is dead. I don’t exactly know what form of chivalry has been killed, and I’m not interested in simply resurrecting some structure of the past. We do not necessarily need a well-developed chivalric code. But as Christians, we need to seriously consider again what a virtuous society looks like.
While virtue may deal with personal character, it is expressed communally. Virtue creates the fabric of life together. Therefore, several early medieval writers, such as the venerable Bede, called discretion the “mother of all the virtues.” Such discretion involves judging the proper expression of the other virtues within a particular context that maintains the integrity of those other virtues. Let me explain.
For a person to act a certain way in one situation would be courageous. To act in a similar manner in another situation would be brash and impulsive. For a person to extend mercy in one case would be truly merciful. To extend what appears to be mercy in another case would be foolhardy, condoning, or even cowardly. It is discretion that enables us to know the difference.
Think of all the ways we are called to honor others. I honor my wife in a way that is unique to how I honor all other women. The way I honor my mother now at 46 looks different than how I was called to honor her when I was 5, 12, or even 18. Discretion allows the virtue of honor to extend beyond good intentions to actually bestowing it tangibly upon another.
What does it look like to love my enemies, not in the abstract, but on the various battlefields of life? There are battlefields of nations, battlefields of ideas, battlefields of truth, and battlefields of personal conflict. All require a particular response in order to express the virtue of love. When does patience become passivity? When does honest speech become a spark that sets forests ablaze?
Because of the great rebellion of Adam and his descendents against God, we live in a world that by its very nature spoils virtue and subverts social norms. A world that was created for unity and harmony has the seeds of autonomy and discord permeating the soil of men’s hearts. The medievals understood the fallenness of man and felt the need for an explicit, societal code of honor. In contrast, many today are content to emphasize vague principles of love and respect.
However, the moral foundations that support our current cultural building project are extremely unstable even on a calm day. Add to it the stormy winds of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ, or Trumpism, and you quickly find Christians walking timidly through a field of landmines. Love, respect, tolerance, empathy, mercy, justice, equality, etc. are all handled with uncertainty. When Jesus stated, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the people responded, “Who is my neighbor?” Now they would ask, “What do you mean by love?”
The answer to this is a return to our mother virtue. A virtuous life must become a robust, unapologetic, catholic way of life; a liturgical dance for the everyday moments. These are not the days of standing by the punch bowl with our hands in our pockets looking unsure of what we’re supposed to be doing while the world dances on into oblivion. You fight a culture of death with a culture bursting at the seams with life.
So we learn how to sing and dance together. We learn how to eat together. We learn how to be a good friend, how to marry and raise children. We learn how to respect the wisdom of the old and invest in the strength of the young. We learn how to bestow greater honor on the weak. We learn how to hate the sin and love the sinner. We learn how to live peaceably in an increasingly hostile world. “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:21)
I am a better pastor than John Piper, John MacArthur, Tim Keller and any other pastor of renown. No, I am not as rhetorically gifted, nor am I widely published, nor will I ever draw the crowds, but for you, specifically, the members of my congregation, I am the best pastor you will have. I will go further and say that your local pastor, whoever he may be, is also a better pastor than all the men I mentioned above. They are uniquely called men to shepherd you, to hear your stories, to know your individual names, to baptize your children, marry your daughters, bury your fathers; yes, these men are better pastors than the prestigious men above.
You can go ahead and gain from their insights, listen to their sermons and lectures, read their books, but at the end of the day, only one man (or a couple of them) will be at the hospital when your son has a concussion or breaks his leg, or when your aging mother has a heart attack, or when the unexpected comes.
Friends, don’t lose sight of your local reality and community. Encourage your pastor to continue the hard work of ministering, bearing burdens, exhorting, comforting, and more. Don’t believe the lie that you can do church alone with these celebrities or that you don’t need a local body or that theology is a job best done in isolation or that your local pastor is only a fill-in or an add-on to the real pastors. You belong to a local body. And that weak and sometimes unsophisticated and sometimes clumsy, and sometimes corny, but always faithful man is a better pastor for you than all those super names combined.
Augustine’s book Confessions is a wonderful reflection on the sovereignty of God and the evangelical nature of the gospel. That is to say, in reading in the Confessions, you are steeped in the reality that God will judge every moment of your life. Augustine underlines and highlights this reality throughout the book by writing it as one long prayer to God.
One time I was talking with a friend about the book and he commented that he kept getting caught on the pronoun “you”. He would be reading along and then Augustine would say “you” and my friend said that pronoun would reorient everything: the book is not addressed to the reader but to God. This is true throughout the whole book even up to the end where Augustine writes, “Only you can be asked, only you can be begged, only on your door can we knock” (Bk XIII.38).
As I reflect on the nature of prayer and what Augustine is doing in this book, I am challenged in a couple of ways. First, do I have such a robust prayer life that I could pray to God like Augustine? Augustine prays about everything imaginable. Big things and small things: he prays about smiling as an infant, being beaten at school, dreams, friendships, reading, death, philosophy, memory, etc. Augustine’s prayer life is his whole life. I don’t know when I have ever heard someone pray about the nature of time. But Augustine does it.
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
