"The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?" Mere Christianity
"He who has this disease called Jesus will never be cured." Russian Proverb
I long to catch Jesus' disease, his good infection. I am drawn to the warmth of the fire of the Holy Spirit. I yearn to be at the center of reality where I can feel the spray off the fountain of eternal life. My heart skips a beat at the thought of entering into the Great Dance of God's three-personal life. I desire, more than anything else in life, to discover my unique place in that dance and live it out for all eternity.
And so I am determined to use every means God gives me to draw closer to him in the rhythm of the dance. . . .
- I will take up the word of God and read, mark, inwardly digest it.
- I will bow my head, even amidst the noisiness of every day life and I will seek that quiet place at the center of all reality.
- I will eat of the bread and drink of the cup which remind me of and nourish me upon Christ's death.
- And I will continually seek out the fellowship of other Christ-followers because we are indeed different parts of one body, designed to dance together in Christ's love.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." Acts 2:42
Comments
I get back to San Diego every so often. I was there in October. In fact, as I was sitting drinking a cup of coffee at the Pannikin I met a current UCSD student and thought--those were the days!
I miss SD--especially in the snows and gray skies of a Virginia January.