The Acceptance of the Divine
The sermon emphasizes the importance of trusting in God's plan and wisdom, even in the midst of challenges and difficulties.
Mary Wilder Tileston preaches about God's promise to lead the blind in unfamiliar paths, making darkness light before them and straightening crooked things. She emphasizes the wisdom and guidance of God's love in our lives, even when we are blinded by uncertainty. Tileston encourages living with the awareness that every aspect of our lives unfolds as part of a divine plan, where every experience and change reveals God's fatherly counsel. She urges acceptance of trials, suffering, and challenges as opportunities for growth, trusting that God has prepared us for greater things.
Text
I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
ISAIAH 16
WHEN over dizzy heights we go,
One soft hand blinds our eyes,
The other leads us, safe and slow,
O Love of God most wise!
ELIZA SCUDDER
THE simple thought of a life which is to be the un-folding of a Divine plan is too beautiful, too captivating, to suffer one indifferent or heedless moment. Living in this manner, every turn of your experience will be a discovery to you of God, every change a token of His fatherly counsel. Whatever obscurity, darkness, trial, suffering, falls upon you; your defeats, losses, injuries; your outward state, employment, rela-tions; what seems hard, unaccountable, severe, or, as nature might say, vexatiou--all these you will see are parts or constitutive elements in God's beautiful and good plan for you, and, as such, are to be accepted with a smile. Take your burdens, and troubles, and losses, and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunities, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these.
HORACE BUSHNELL
Sermon Outline
- The Divine Plan
- Accepting Life's Challenges
- Trust in God's Wisdom
- God's guidance is always available
- Faith in God's goodness and love
Key Quotes
“Every turn of your experience will be a discovery to you of God, every change a token of His fatherly counsel.” — Mary Wilder Tileston
“Take your burdens, and troubles, and losses, and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunities, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these.” — Mary Wilder Tileston
Application Points
- Trust in God's plan and wisdom, even when you don't understand it.
- Recognize that every experience, including difficulties, is an opportunity for growth and discovery.
- Accept the challenges in your life as part of God's plan to shape you into the person He wants you to be.