You're welcome.
But this idea of being a vessel has been on my mind recently.
Maybe it's a recognition of surrender? Maybe a recognition of too much striving? Trying to be something. Trying to do something. Sensing that as a deeper desire for more of God and less of me.
A vessel. A broken one, at that.
Wanting to be spoken to. Spoken through.
So I wanted to share some quotes from a book I've been reading lately - Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God.
It's one of those books that is truly over my head. And I knew that going into it.
But if one never grasps for what is out of reach, you'll only have what is within reach. You don't learn Calculus by stopping at 1+1=2.
A child is taught to "reach for the stars" and they'll land somewhere in between reality and the stars. Thus is the case with me. In reading this book, I am aiming far beyond and hopefully (and prayerfully) I'll land somewhere further than where I can see.
May these words speak to you as they have spoken to me...
In this life with God, his presence banishes our aloneness and makes real the meaning and full purpose of human existence. This union with God consists chiefly in a conversational relationship with God while we are consistently and deeply engaged as his friend and colaborer in the affairs of the kingdom of the heavens. (pg. 75)
Hang on. Read that one again. It's that good.
Ok, moving on...
Frank Laubach tells of the immense change that came over his life at the point when he resolved to do the will of God:
As for me, I never lived, I was half dead, I was a rotting tree, until I reached the place where I wholly, with utter honesty, resolved and then re-resolved that I would find God’s will, and I would do that will through ever fiber in me said no, and I would win the battle in my thoughts. It was as though some deep artesian well had been struck in my soul....You and I shall soon blow away from our bodies. Money, praise, poverty, opposition, these make no difference for they will all alike be forgotten in a thousand years, but this spirit which comes to a mind set upon continuous surrender, this spirit is timeless.
(pg. 93, quote from Frank Laubach comes from his Letters by a Modern Mystic)
Mmm. Here's to striking artesian wells deep in our souls!
And one more...
[I]t is important to understand that God in his mercy often speaks to us in obscure ways in order to allow us the room and time we need to respond. He lets us know that we are indeed being addressed but also that we need to stretch our in growth in order to receive the message. Perhaps we often think, Well, God, why don’t you just come out and say it? Tell me in detail how to live. But we are usually full of mistaken ideas about what that would actually mean.
Our minds and values have to be restructured before God’s glory, but at the same time our interests are truly appreciated and understood. We may be tempted to cry out, like Isaiah, for God to rend the heavens, come out of hiding and stand before us telling us what to do (Is 64:1), but we do not really understand what we are asking for when we ask that. Probably it would literally kill us or at least unbalance us if it actually happened, so God in his mercy continues to approach us obliquely, in one way or another. But this is increasingly less so as we mature - even until that time when we can safely know him as he knows us (1 Cor 13:12).
It is therefore natural and right that God’s word comes to us in forms that we must struggle to understand. This is even true of the Bible, which is very explicit in many respects but still requires persistent and energetic work to understand. In the process of struggling we grow to the point where we can appropriate and assimilate the content of truth as it becomes clear. It is one of the oldest and most common stories of human life that in its most important moments we have little more than the foggiest idea of what it is we are doing and saying. And our ignorance is partly for our own good.
Did you really know what was happening when you entered the university or military training, got married or brought a child into the world? In some vague sense you did, perhaps, but you also had very little idea of what it meant in the long run. If you had appreciated all that it meant at the time, you probably would not have had the courage to proceed. Then you would have missed out on much good that has come to you through those events. (pg. 148-9)
So. true.
If I get going, my thoughts will ramble and show their ignorance.
So...this is the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment