Satisfy
us by your lovingkindness in the morning. Psalm 90:14
Jesus taught us,
saying: “Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by
itself, unless it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain
in me. I am the vine, you are the branches.”
John 15:4-5
Lewis writes
about how often our daily experiences crowd our prayer into the margin or
sometimes off the page altogether. Why is this true if indeed we were created
“to glorify God and enjoy Him forever”? What can be done with a rose tree that
dislikes producing roses?
Is it perhaps because we shrink from too naked a
contact, because we are afraid of the divine demands upon which it might make
too audible? As one old writer says, many a Christian prays faintly “lest God
might really hear him, which he poor man, never intended.”
If we were perfected, prayer would not be a duty, it
would be a delight. Some day, please God, it will be. The same is true of any
other behaviours which now appear as duties. If I loved my neighbor as myself,
most of the actions which are now my moral duty would flow out of me as
spontaneously as song from a lark or fragrance from a flower. Why is that not
so yet?
The very activities for which we were created are,
while we live on earth, variously impeded. Not to practice them is to abandon
our humanity. To practice them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet
possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the whole specifically
moral realm.
It exists to be transcended. Here is the paradox of Christianity.
As practical imperatives for here and now the two great commandments that have
to be translated, “Behave as if you loved God and man.”
The Law, a schoolmaster, as St. Paul says, to bring us
to Christ.
But the school days, please God, are numbered.
And as I head out into the day, to teach young
minds grammar, so to speak, so that they will someday be able to read poetry,
may I slip into those moments, those glimpses of glory, unimplored,
unsought, Happy for man so coming, that refresh and delight in You.
Even now, come
Lord Jesus, come.
