IrishOboe

Praise the Lord my life is in His hands.  Praise the Lord he never gives up on me!  No sooner do I learn about and begin to focus on a new and wonderful teaching of God that I forget something important.  In my recent attempts to release my burdens and abide in the Lord it’s been so lovely to rely on Him in the day-to-day and to watch Him prove so faithful.  My spirit was light and my days were joy to walk yoked with Jesus.  Alas, I turned away and what was left was the knowledge that I’m not walking fully with him and the remembrance of when I did and the guilt that I couldn’t and didn’t want to come back!  My prayers were empty and God was far.  Every task in the day loomed large an ominous before me.  What is wrong with me?

year ago I picked up Mom’s copy of The Heart of George MacDonald to read during our trip up north for vacation with family.  I’ve never been the same.  Snuggled in the bottom bunk of the Maggie P. God spoke to me through MacDonald’s words and opened a channel for the Holy Spirit to work in me.  I’ve been sometimes more and often times less responsive to God ever since.  I decided it was time to reread and remember since I end up quoting his ideas frequently and I can never quite say it the way I mean it.  Where to begin?  I think I might just post quotes here and there as comments to this blog subject when something strikes me, but I don’t have much to add.  I’ll start with a poem.  I think it speaks for itself.

Lord, I have fallen again – a human clod!

Selfish I was, and heedless to offend;

Stood on my rights.  Thy own child would not send

Away his shreds of nothing for the whole God!

Wretched, to thee who savest, low I bend:

Give me the power to let my rag-rights go

In the great wind that from thy gulf doth blow.

I'm currently reading too many books.  Maybe I'm just avoiding practicing.  In any case I came across this idea in Subversive Orthodoxy by Robert Inchausti.

 "For [William] Blake, a person who is not an artist cannot be a Christian, for the creative imagination is the only vehicle through which love of one's fellow man can be grasped."

I'm not sure what to think of it.  I think imagination is very important for a Christian.  We must be able to imagine alternatives to that which we see around us, but is imagination a vehicle for grasping love?  I'm not even sure what that means.  Unfortunately I can't find the original quote, so it's hard to tell.