Week 41—Tuesday 2 Corinthians 2:14-15
Week 41—TUESDAY
“IT’S POURING DOWN—IT’S POURING DOWN—TAKE IT”
We are studying the Christian faith as realized potentiality, as Everywhere brought into the Now, as Everything brought into the Here.
A girl was an ugly personality, no friends. But Estelle Carver got her to write out this verse and place it in the corner of her mirror: “I, Janet, chosen of God, holy and beloved” (a paraphrase of Col. 3:12). She read it day by day, made it her own, and became exactly what she read. In six months she was transformed. It could have been done in six minutes.
In a Greek convent in Jerusalem two pictures linger in my mind. Sister Lila lives there and is a saint. She lives in a state of vibrant joy and vitality. She said to me, “What can I do for you? What can I bring you?” I replied, “I want nothing except more grace.” “Well,” she said, “take it. It’s pouring down, it’s pouring down—take it.” And when she said it, you knew she was doing that very thing—she was taking it.
On the other hand, in the same convent I saw a lovely painting of a woman who had spent twenty years in the desert atoning for her sin of adultery. Haggard and worn from her twenty years of austerity and fasting she was at last being given the Holy Communion by a priest in the desert. She had atoned for her sins. This is not the Word become flesh—it is the flesh trying to become word—the flesh atoning for its own sins. It is the Hindu conception, but not the Christian.
And yet one seems cheap and the other expensive. But the reverse is true. Sister Lila takes grace as it pours down, and she pours out her life as an offering of gratitude for grace. The desert penitent had no message to give—all she could do would be to warn others of how expensive sin is. But no message of the wonder of grace. It was an egocentric attempt at salvation. Hence no song to sing. But Sister Lila’s life itself was a song—a lyrical song of the wonder of redeeming grace.
O Lord God and Savior, save me from thinking I can save myself by my goodness or by my efforts. For my goodness is not goodness when it is a substitute for your grace. Give me the grace to take your grace and then I’ll have your goodness. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: An organism can expend as much energy as it takes in and no more.