MASON KING

I’ve spent time in Psalm 131 this summer, studying and meditating as I prepped a message. This quote put me on my heels, and it came from a comiled commentary, so I’m unsure who exactly to attribute it to. Enjoy, nonetheless, and maybe read twice.

“One of the things that can only be learned through the experiences of life is what we can do, and what we may do. Putting wise limits upon our undertakings and our spheres is one of the most important and anxious things that we have to do. And one of the chief modern sins is attempting too much, and not being willing to keep ourselves strictly within the limits of what we can do really well. The young man thinks he can do anything and everything, and it may often be the consequence that he does nothing really well.”

I don’t like the man who doesn’t sleep, says God.
Sleep is the friend of man.
Sleep is the friend of God.
Sleep is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have created,
and I myself rested on the seventh day.
He whose heart is pure, sleeps, And he who sleeps has a pure heart.
That is the great secret of being as indefatigable as a child,
of having that strength in legs that a child has.
Those new legs, those new souls,
And to begin afresh every morning, ever new.
Like young hope, new hope.
But they tell me that there are men
Who work well and sleep badly.
Who don’t sleep. What a lack of confidence in me.

I pity them. I have it against them. A little, they don’t trust me.
Like the child who innocently lies in her mother’s arms, thus they do
not lie
Innocently in the arms of my Providence.
They have the courage to work. They haven’t enough virtue to be idle.
To stretch out. To rest. To sleep.
Poor people, they don’t know what is good.
They look after their business very well during the day.

But they haven’t enough confidence in me to let me look after it during the night.
As if I wasn’t capable of looking after it during one night.
He who doesn’t sleep is unfaithful to Hope.
And it is the greatest infidelity.

Charles Peguy, Basic Verities [New York: Pantheon Books, 1934] 209-11.  // found in the end notes from Eugene Peterson’s Answering God.

Having had a pretty long week, I ran some errands tonight in the evening summer heat and soaked in this song from Sandra McCracken. Her last couple of albums have been the soundtrack of 2017 thus far, and this one has been near the top: Song for Rachel.

Here’s McCracken’s description from her website:

This song was inspired by Jeremiah 31 and a sermon by Timothy Keller. In the scripture passage, Rachel is broken-hearted and lamenting over the places of loss that were not yet brought to restoration.  Like her, we wait in eager expectation, and sing ourselves forward into the day when the trumpet sounds and earth and heaven will be made one.  God gives comfort to us as we bring our honest cry to him.  This song also echoes the refrain from the last album, “We will feast, and weep no more.” 

You can listen here, and read the lyrics below. I’d give it a good couple listens. It sows seeds of hope.

Today during a staff worship service we sang Audrey Assad’s song, I shall not want:

Been thinking on the lyrics since then, and the prayer below has been on my lips today.

From the need of affirmation,
From the fear of humility,
From the need to feel special,
From the want of every talent,
Deliver me, O God.

(When I taste your goodness, I shall not want.)

Because of sin, we are all drawn to autonomy–we are all oriented to independence rather than dependence upon God. Because of this, we will always be tempted to use our strengths (whether they are talents, abilities, or even spiritual gifts) in our own power rather than in reliance upon Christ. Even in our strengths, therefore, where we are most tempted, we need to rely upon God and abide in his love. It is in the areas of our lives where we are most able, the places we think we are strong, where we are most often called into weakness. It is in our strengths we we think we can avoid abiding in Christ, where we sow to the flesh rather than abide by the Spirit. It is in our strengths where we trust our own personal savvy rather than the calling of God. As those called, not in our power but in God’s power, we are called to know our weakness amid our strengths, so that when we try to thrive in sinful autonomy, we turn instead to abiding in Christ and proclaiming to him, “Without you, we can do nothing,” (John 15:5). Power in the Christian life is found in one place and one place alone. In the words of Paul, “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col 1:29). It is God’s energy at work within that we must come to embrace; but his energy is not the power to achieve, but the power of dependence and love.

The Way of the Dragon orThe Way of the Lamb, Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel (p.33)