Week 5—Thursday John 16:13-15
Week 5—THURSDAY
EXCITED AFTER SIXTY YEARS
We continue our meditation on the Way leading to the Truth and the Life. We insisted that you find the Truth as you follow the Way. Jesus enunciated this principle when he said: “He that is willing to do the will shall know of the teaching.” He that is willing to do shall know. A Hindu said to me, “Is that the price of knowing the truth, being willing to do the will of God? Then I shall not know, for I am not willing to do.” He was profoundly right; we know as much of the Truth as we are willing to practice on the Way—and no more! If the Word doesn’t become flesh in us, it doesn’t remain as the Word, except as a poor ghost.
This finding of the Truth by following the Way makes the finding of Truth an exciting business. A professor of philosophy said wearily: “I’m bored—bored with philosophy, bored with my teaching, bored with my students, bored with life, bored with myself—I’m bored!” He was! His was the quest of propositions, of the Word become word. It was like the little boy who wanted to show his family the roar of Niagara Falls, so he caught some of the water in a bottle and took it home. But when he showed it to the family he said in dismay: “Ah shucks, it’s died.” Truth taken out of the stream of life is a dead thing. But back in the stream of life it is an exciting thing—the most exciting of things. And you’re never bored with it. For sixty years I’ve thought of one subject, have spoken about that one subject, and have written about that one subject—that one subject, a Person, Jesus Christ. After thinking and talking about one subject for sixty years, one should be bored and should want a moral holiday, want to get away and think of something else. On the contrary, I was never so excited, so exhilarated, so full of surprise as now. Something new breaks out from him every day, a surprise around every corner, horizons cracking, life popping with novelty and meaning—and value. The Truth is making me free—free to find more Truth and yet more Truth. And so on forever and forever.
O God, my Father, I thank you for this gentle excitement, this inner quiver of finding and yet forever seeing the Beyond. The search for the Beyond is not a hopeless quest, for I know I am on the Way. This security bids me follow the Insecure, which, when I practice it, becomes the Secure. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: From the basis of the Secure I shall today adventure into the Insecure—my life is an adventure with God.