Kept Secure in Our Struggles 11/18/2009
While reading in the book of Jonah last night, I came across a devotional writing by Julian of Norwich and stood amazed. I walked away from that time in devotion with such encouragement from her words that I knew at once I'd be sharing them with you, SonShines. "Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord" (Jonah 1:1-3, NRSV). Below, you can listen to Julian of Norwich's words as you read along. "In this life there is within us who are to be saved a surprising mixture of good and bad. We have our risen Lord; we have the wretchedness and mischief done by Adam's fall and death. Kept secure by Christ we are assured, by his touch of grace, of salvation; broken by Adam's fall, and in many ways by our own sins and sorrows, we are so darkened and blinded that we can hardly find any comfort. But in our heart we abide in God, and confidently trust to his mercy and grace--and this is his working in us. And of his goodness he opens the eye of our understanding so that we can see; sometimes it is less, sometimes more, according to our God-given ability to receive it. Now we are uplifted by the one; now we are allowed to fall into the other. And this fluctuating is so baffling that we are hard put to know where we stand, whether we are thinking of ourselves or of our fellow believers. It certainly is a marvelous mix up! But the one thing that matters is that we always say "Yes" to God whenever we experience him, and really do will to be with him, with all our heart and soul and strength. It is then that we hate and despise our evil inclinations, and all else that might make us sin, physically or spiritually. Yet, when this sweetness vanishes, we fall back into our blind state, and so into all sorts of distress and trouble. At such a time this is our strength--we know by faith that, through the virtue of Christ our guardian, we never really accept this situation, but protesting against it, we hang on and pray through all this trouble and grief, until such time as once again God will reveal himself to us." ***I'm working to improve the quality of my audio recordings, please bear with me! (and yes, I'm totally southern...)   |   Loading
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