Faith & Trust
The idea, you see, is not the reflection, the radiating of the light of Christ on others, though that were a figure lawful enough; but the taking into, and having in us, him working to the changing of us.
He who would thus live must, as a mirror draws into its bosom an outward glory, receive into his ‘heart of heart’ the inward glory of Jesus Christ, the Truth.
The only free man, then, is he who is a child of the Father.
Let us then dare something. Let us not always be unbelieving children.
The God who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions of nature; who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and be blessed; who never needs to be, and never is, in haste; who welcomes the simplest thought of truth or beauty as the return for seed he has sown upon the old fallows of eternity.
Faith is that which, knowing the Lord’s will, goes and does it; or, not knowing it, stands and waits, content in ignorance as in knowledge, because God wills; neither pressing into the hidden future, nor careless of the knowledge which opens the path of action.
Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill; Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed; Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied; Not that I need thee daily sorer still; Not that I wretched, wander from thy will; Not now for any cause to thee I cry, But this, that thou art thou, and here am I.
What should I think of my child, if I found that he limited his faith in me and hope from me to the few promises he had heard me utter!
He is a servant of all, but can be made the slave of none: he is a son of the lord of the universe.
So are we sons when we begin to cry Father, but we are far from perfected sons.
But now the Spirit and I are one in this—My hunger now is after righteousness; My spirit hopes in God to set me free From the low self loathed of the higher me.
The faith that limits itself to the promises of God, seems to me to partake of the paltry character of such a faith in my child—good enough for a Pagan, but for a Christian a miserable and wretched faith.
Our mirroring of Christ, then, is one with the presence of his spirit in us.
If there be a God, and I am his creature, there may be, there should be, there must be some communication open between him and me.
He is utterly true and good to us, nor shall anything withstand his will.
When we are least worthy, then, most tempted, hardest, unkindest, let us yet commend our spirits into his hands.
The true man trusts in a strength which is not his, and which he does not feel, does not even always desire; believes in a power that seems far from him, which is yet at the root of his fatigue itself and his need of rest—rest as far from death as is labour.
Take from me leisure, all familiar places; Take all the lovely things of earth and air Take from me books; take all my precious faces; Draw nearer, taking, and, to my sober thinking, Thou bring’st them nearer all, and ready to my prayer.
Faith is the human shadow of thy might. Thou art the one self-perfect life, and we Who trust thy life, therein join on to thee, Taking our part in self-creating light.
Every uplifting of the heart is a looking up to The Father.
MannaScroll