Spasmodic spirituality - Chambers, Oswald
Your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. Hosea 6:4.
Fits of goodness may often be seen in a base character, indicating a capacity to be noble; but apart from that, all kinds of natures are conscious of moments of unusual power and insight and excellence. These moments are wonderful and delightful episodes in both intellectual and spiritual life, yet they nearly always leave the nature with a reaction. Such emotion is no more real goodness than a dewdrop is a diamond or a meteor a star. It is a perilous thing, eminently perilous, to experience flashes struck from midnight and not allow god to readjust the life to the level of that moment of insight. The spirituality the spirit of god gives is entirely free from these passing episodes, the whole life is in keeping, its characteristic being persistence, which is the only sign of reality. A bird flies persistently and easily because the air is its domain and its world. A legal christian is one who is trying to live in a rarer world than is natural to him. Our lord said if therefore the son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed, i. E. , free from the inside, born from above (RV mg), lifted into another world where there is no strenuous effort to live in a world not natural to us, but where we can soar continually higher and higher because we are in the natural domain of spiritual life. One might almost say that our every effort to be good and our every effort to be holy is a sure sign that we are neither good nor holy. A child makes no effort to be the daughter or son of its parents, and a child of god born of the spirit makes no conscious effort to be good or to be holy; but just as a child try- ing to imitate someone elses mother is bound to fail, so the natural man trying to imitate god is bound to fail. When the child imitates his own mother he can do it with success, because the inherent nature of the child is like the mother; and when a christian tries to imitate Jesus Christ he can do it easily because the spirit of Jesus is in him. The strenuous effort of the saint is not to produce holiness, but to express in every circumstance the life of Jesus which is imparted to him by the holy ghost.
That is pauls meaning in Philippians 2: work out your own salvation. . . . For it is god which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (philippians 2:1213). The mourning of jehovah over ephraim and judah is very wistfulo ephraim, what shall i do unto thee? O judah, what shall i do unto thee? I won- der if any of us are causing the same wistful yearning to the holy ghost? If he has to mourn over us and say your goodness is as a morning cloud? There- fore, says god, have i hewed them by the prophets; i have slain them by the words of my mouth. The first thing that will bring an unnatural natural man to his senses before god is the word of god spoken by a man of god. I mean by an unnatural natural man, one who is trying by prayer, by effort, by bible read- ing, to be a saint.
In the epistle to the Galatians paul is writing to immature Christians, and he says, am i therefore become your enemy, because i tell you the truth? (Galatians 4:16). They have been disenchanted by the rugged truth of the apostles wordsare ye so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3). They had been reverting back to ritual and observances, trying to perfect themselves by the flesh. Oh the emancipation of the life that has realised the fulness of god which dwells in christ jesus! Then it is not only natural, but easy and right to mount up with wings as eagles. No christian has any right to be un-enthusiastic. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the spirit. It is easy for many men to obey the first part of this injunction while they disobey the latter. We must be thrilled, and if human nature does not get its thrills from the right place, it will take them from the wrong.
Enthusiasm means, to use the phrase of a German mystic, intoxicated with god, filled to overflowing with god; no spasmodic spirituality about us, but a perennial source of freshness, making us a delight to our lord, and a channel of blessing to all with whom we come in contact. The sad and serious lapsing of many immature Christians who have not got the life more abundant, must cause many a heart- pang to our lord. Are we filled with the spirit? Or is our experience one that manages to draw out of god enough grace to last the day, and at its close we say with a sigh, if we remember, oh well, thank god i have got through the day? Could you imagine any- thing more utterly unlike the superabounding life of god the new testament talks about? Is that anything like the superconquering life Paul talks about? People say they are tired of life; no man was ever tired of life; the truth is that we are tired of being half dead while we are alive. What we need is to be transfigured by the incoming of a great and new life.
Again the old message of the psalms and the new message of the new testament meet togetherall my fresh springs shall be in thee (psalm 87:7 pbv ): of his fulness have all we received ( john 1:16). Are all the channels of our life open to god? Are the channels of our body open for divine health to come to us through the resurrection life of Jesus? Are our hearts and imaginations and spirits open for the divine insight and comfort and sanctification of god to come to us through the atonement? If not, we are not only starving our own lives, but are a hindrance to the lives of others and a grief to our lord.
God grant that his spirit may bring everyone of us to the place where the secret is learned and enjoyed that his strength is made perfect in our weakness. The realisation that my strength is always a hindrance to gods supply of life is a great eye-opener. A man who has genius is apt to rely on his genius rather than on god. A man who has money is apt to rely on money instead of god. So many of us trust in what we have got in the way of possessions instead of entirely in god. All these sources of strength are sources of double weakness. But when we realise that our true life is hid with Christ in god, that we are complete in him, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily, then his strength is radiantly manifested in our mortal flesh. God grant that every spasmodic saint may turn into a real sanctified saint, whose light and life and love shine more and more unto the perfect day.