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Gary G. Hoag
“I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”— Ephesians 3:16-19
“The practical man may justly observe at this point that the world of single vision is the only world he knows: that it appears to him to be real, solid, and self-consistent: and that until the existence—at least, the probability—of other planes of reality is made clear to him, all talk of uniting with them is mere moonshine, which confirms his opinion of mysticism as a game fit only for idle women and inferior poets.
Plainly, then, it is the first business of the missionary to create, if he can, some feeling of dissatisfaction with the world within which the practical man has always lived and acted; to suggest something of its fragmentary and subjective character…
Eternity is with us, inviting our contemplation perpetually, but we are too frightened, lazy, and suspicious to respond: too arrogant to still our thought, and let divine sensation have its way. It needs industry and goodwill if we would make that transition: for the process involves a veritable spring-cleaning of the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental furniture, a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild birds beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with wonder and freshness, and drown with their music the noise of the gramophone within.
Those who do this, discover that they have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a world of morning-glory; where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, and every thrusting bud is charged with the full significance of life.”
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) in Practical Mysticism: A Little Book for Normal People (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, LTD, 1914) 13-19.
Today marks the fourth of seven posts from Practical Mysticism. Download this classic work freely here.
Some of you, whilst reading this, think this talk is mere moonshine.
For my part, I am doing everything I can to stir in you as a reader to have a deep and unsettled dissatisfaction with your current view the world.
Some of you have gotten too comfortable here in your temporary existence. It’s like you live in a hotel and yet you have painted the walls and put family pictures up.
You were made for eternity and God wants you to taste it now.
God wants to give you fresh air, yet you choose to reside in a stuffy space. He wants to show you the matchlessness of his care, yet you want to try to sort things yourself.
Hear Him say from heaven, “How’s that working for you?”
That may be the awesome trait of the God that we serve. He does not force His magnificence on us. He does not make us trust Him or benefit from His care.
Abandon the path of dissatisfaction. Choose the way of discovery. Re-read today’s Scripture.
Thank God for His love. Do a Spring-cleaning in your soul. Rearrange the proverbial furniture. Open the windows and let the Holy Spirit blow out your stuffy air.
Enjoy a deeper intimacy with God and peace no moonshine can offer.
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