Having given everything away to love and serve God the work, though difficult is not demanding, though dealing with dark places is full of light and, even when walking amongst intense sadness there is to be found an immense amount of joy!
‘Nothing’ when not faced down with belief gobbles up everything!
…Sometimes, perversely, I beg for a big sin – because then I have to wake up, run home, and seek forgiveness and succour in the ever welcoming bosom of God’s love.
If the ‘demons’ of our life cannot turn us into hardened unrepentant egoists then they are more than happy to settle with small sins. After all banal sin remain sin.
Whilst in this world we may be subject to troughs as well as crests but no matter how low the trough of despair may be, we are not faced with the prospect of emptiness but the wonderful possibility of being further filled!
How important it is to learn that the deep troughs of the undulations of the spiritual life are not darkness but are in fact the place from which we take the first steps of a deeper faith.
We want cattle who can become food:
He wants servants who can become sons.
We want to suck in,
He wants to give out.
We are empty and would be filled;
He is full and flows over.
If we do not recognise the ‘law of undulation’ at work within us then at the very least we will drift away from a faith which has become over-dependant on emotional ‘highs’ instead of grounded in spiritual reality.
Holding a position different to another is not of itself sinful – but demonising our opponent most definitely is! Being passionate about something which stirs our heart can be godly – but using our ‘righteousness’ to destroy another is truly the work of the devil.
… to see the face of Christ in the pout of the fractious child or the groans of the awkward aunt is, for me, a different matter altogether. However, just because I can’t see Jesus in a particular place or person has never meant that He is not there.
Suffolk Vicar 