10 Resolutions for Mental Health, by Clyde Kilby, posted by John Piper

On October 22, 1976, Clyde Kilby, who is now with Christ in Heaven, gave an unforgettable lecture. I went to hear him that night because I loved him. He had been one of my professors in English Literature at Wheaton College. He opened my eyes to more of life than I knew could be seen. O, what eyes he had! He was like his hero, C. S. Lewis, in this regard. When he spoke of the tree he saw on the way to class this morning, you wondered why you had been so blind all your life. Since those days in classes with Clyde Kilby,Psalm 19:1 has been central to my life: “The sky is telling the glory of God.”

That night Dr. Kilby had a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye. He pled with us to stop seeking mental health in the mirror of self-analysis, but instead to drink in the remedies of God in nature. He was not naïve. He knew of sin. He knew of the necessity of redemption in Christ. But he would have said that Christ purchased new eyes for us as well as new hearts. His plea was that we stop being unamazed by the strange glory of ordinary things. He ended that lecture in 1976 with a list of resolutions. As a tribute to my teacher and a blessing to your soul, I offer them for your joy.

Go here for Kilby’s 10 resolutions for mental health.

Convicted By a Dove

Convicted by a single dove this day.  Oh to be in earnest like that bird.  Up I arose and out I went early in the morning hours to preach.  Closing my door, there I saw the dove which had beaten me to the task.  His eyes were quickened to the morning.  I do not doubt but that he stayed up all night awaiting the rising of the sun and the peace and warmth of the day.  In the night he did stand guard and wait earnestly it appeared for the sun blitzed horizon.  And why, but that he did keep ready for any onslaught of a thousand enemies, for there he sat upon the nest and saw to the well-being of the eggs.  To those children he did attend with eye-opened zeal that pierced the darkness until light had taken its appointed stage.  I thought to myself, “Would that I as a Christian husband, father, son, brother, grandson, friend, relative, neighbor, and God willing, pastor, would that I with these precious relationships, soul concerned relationships, be in such earnest for the well-being of their souls.  Would that I would stand guard against the enemy who sets himself against them.  Would that I would patiently brood upon them until they are ready in God’s grace to hatch.  Would that I would keep a ready eye to the horizon of God’s coming in Christ, the breaking in of the Sun of righteousness and of joy.  Would that I would hope in God’s Word ‘more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning’ (Ps 130.6).”  God help me to take and learn the lesson of the simple dove who draws its every beat from You.