For “Himself”
I
recall certain Pygmalion stories—Shaw's “My Fair Lady” for example—in which a benefactor finds a
miserable wretch, lifts her out of her helplessness and defilement and gives
her a new life. All this he does not only for her sake, but also for his.
God is that benefactor, lifting us out of sin and squalor, recreating us in his
image for our good. But more than that—for His!
All
through our lives God has been wooing us, nurturing us, investing his infinite resources to refine our passions, molding, shaping,
revising us with His love.
And
why? So we can enjoy him? Indeed! But more than that: God is changing us so He may enjoy us forever!
Robert
Browning has written a poem employing the figure of a potter molding a cup that
wonderfully expresses this idea:[1]
He fixed thee 'mid this dance
Of
plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery
just meant
To
give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently
impressed.
Look not thou down but up!
To
uses of a cup,
The festel board, lamps flash and trumpet's peal,
The
new wine’s foaming flow,
The
Master's lips aglow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup,
what
need'st thou with earth's wheel?
But
I need, now as then,
Thee
God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did
I—to the wheel of life
With
shapes and colors rife,
Bound dizzily—mistake my end: to slake Thy thirst!
—Robert Browning
Or
as David would say, “Always keep this thought in mind: The Lord has set apart
the godly[2]
for Himself” (Psalm 4:3).
David
Roper
