Taking it Easy

The sacred weeks, with unfelt pace,

    Hath borne us on from grace to grace.

—John Keble

My father and I used to fell trees and buck them with a 6’ two-man crosscut saw. (It now adorns one wall of our son Josh's patio.) Being young and energetic I tried to force the saw into the cut. “Easy does it,”my father would say. “Let the saw do the work.”

I think of Paul's words; "It is God who is working in you…(Philippians 2:13). Easy does it. Let Him do the work.

C. S. Lewis explains the process this way: “Put right out of your head the idea that…Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out—as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They (the Gospel writers) mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you…gradually turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001) 191-192).

Turning us into “a new little Christ,” takes time—actually a lifetime—but God can begin the process today. Sit at the feet of Jesus and His Apostles and take in what they have to say. Say your prayers. "Keep yourself in the love of God" (Jude 20,21), reminding yourself all day long that you are His apple of his eye, resting in the assurance that he is “gradually turning you permanently into a different sort of thing.”

“Shouldn’t we hunger and thirst for righteousness?”you ask. Doesn’t that desire come naturally? Even the worst of us long to be better. An analogy comes to mind—a small child in Toys “R”Us, holding up his hands, reaching for a gift high on a shelf beyond his reach, his eyes glittering with desire. His Father, sensing that desire, retrieves the gift and brings it down to him. 

Indeed God will bring change to us, quietly, invisibly, inexorably. He will "complete" us in due time (Psalm 57:2).

Thou sayest, "Fit me, fashion me for Thee."  

Stretch forth thine empty hands, and be thou still;  

O restless soul, thou dost but hinder Me  

By valiant purpose and by steadfast will.  

Behold the summer flowers beneath the sun,  

In stillness his great glory they behold;  

And sweetly thus his mighty work is done,  

And resting in his gladness they unfold.  

So are the sweetness and the joy divine  

Thine, O beloved, and the work is Mine. 

—Ter Steegen

The work is his; the sweetness and the joy are ours. Easy does it. We shall get there some day.

David Roper

12.29.18