The Banquet of Life Essential
Posted: Sunday, May 17, 2009
by Jean Purcell
OpineBooks.com
I have not written much anywhere about all the byways and detours I took while seeking God and at the same time avoiding Jesus, the Christ. I fed on many things not good for what ailed me.
In years of worst doubt about the living God, I read my horoscope almost daily; I investigated I-Ching teaching and for a while kept a journal in a lovely, well-made I-Ching diary, and looked forward to the periodic I-Ching quotes; I bought a Chinese dragon, jade-looking amulet on a cord, and wore it around my neck often. It received many compliments.
"You are about to look to a machine to tell you about yourself." I saw the blinking lights, the colors arrayed to suggest heavenly wisdom of the universe. And I turned away.
I woke up. A machine or instrument could show physical readings, but I knew instinctively that no machine could know me, my life, feelings, needs of the moment or anything else highly personal and meaningful.
That was a start to a U-turn for me, and months later after an illness full of possibilities, I came to accept that God loved me, was True, and although I could not feel it, held me in the Beloved, Jesus Christ.
Everything and every level of life began to change. I could not see a whole "picture" then, but it was step by step, piece by piece, and not without effort to grasp the helping hand of God at many a point. From that, I wanted to tell the world what God can do, wants to do, and will do for anyone who sincerely seeks Him. Writing began to be renewed in a different way in my life, and I felt as though I was back in elementary school.
Through years since then, no writer who professes faith in Christ has been able to get my serious attention without undergoing close examination of words, phrases, and implied and overt meanings. That is likely why I return to CS Lewis, CH Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones and others now with the Lord. Especially CH Spurgeon and CS Lewis helped me during illness. I still see them as the two whom God sent, through their writings, to walk me into the kingdom of heaven.
Through explanation of the early parts of Isaiah 61, in CH Spurgeon's case, and his complicated and literary biography, in CS Lewis's case, these two, by God's grace, got my attention regarding God and the one I most feared, Jesus.
Those two Christian gentlement of different points in history, 19th and 20th centuries, desired to communicate reliably about God. They looked to Him alone for that ability and depended on Scriptures to guide. The same is true of other "great" Christian writers whose works I admire.
Also, I know about the end of these Christian writers' lives. Ultimately faithful to the uttermost in spite of many oppositions. Yet I believe that even those "greats" would want anyone to test their words and interpretations against the measuring rod of God's words and truth.
It is not a simple thing to read or to write about God. It can cause one to tremble, moving on holy ground. Yet, it is a rewarding thing, for to write or to read with care we need one excellent thing: to seek to comprehend more of God, to draw nearer and adore. We long to share who God is and to convince, not following trends or the popular without question.
I read about a conversation between George MacDonald and one of his sons. The son told of saying to his father, about life in Christ: "It all seems too good to be true!" MacDonald answered: "'Nay, it is just so good it must be true."*
At the bottom line, when we find God-agreeing truth written by flawed humans who understand our desire for a closer walk with God, then we can hold that true writing expression, consistent with what God has already said, and let the flawed or inaccurate go.
We have a standard for judging human words. We have God's Word and His promises in it, and in Christ the living Word. We also need minds open to God, not the rules some impose from their own minds. "Let no man beguile (defraud) you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind..." ( Colossians 2: 18).
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk ye in him... For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power" (Colossians 2: 6, 9-10).
God's divine mysteries are stored up and reserved for those who put all faith in Him through His Son Jesus. Through Him we receive an infinite banquet for life and godliness, now and forever! Amen.
*Life Essential: the Hope of the Gospel," George MacDonald (1892), from the Introduction by Rolland Hein, July 1974. Harold Shaw Publishers.
This Article has been viewed 245 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.