Asleep. That’s what I was for much of the time since I, like Joan, answered the call “Come”. I ‘came’, but tired quickly of the “do, do and do” or the “be, be and be” message that was implied by many of the congregations where I attended. Certainly, there were moments along the way when I recall feeling like I could breath freely, but, either from my own wrong theology or that of my teachers, I would grow weary once again from all the ‘doing’ and all the ‘being’ and would retreat to Joan’s “door” and fall asleep. I won’t take the space here to describe the process of my personal paradigm shift, but I have found myself at last with eyes at least opened to the second call, the compelling call, the hopeful call, the freeing call – that to abide.
One reason that my first reading of this book was so compelling to me, was the concept of rest while yoked. Murray says in Chapter 2, “It is not the yoke, but resistance to the yoke, that causes the difficulty.” To be confidently yoked to one who is stronger means that I no longer need strain, stress, consider my own way or wonder what is right. Oh, to have the unfailing confidence in The One in whom I’m yoked! Lord, help my unbelief.
Chapter 3 opens with the question: “Is a life of unbroken fellowship with the Savior possible?” I read on, probably holding my breath for Murray’s answer, his observation to that ponderous question. His image of a ‘cord’ is so compelling to me that I actually drew a rather fat one meandering across my journal page. The cord of love that drew me ‘come’ is the cord that holds me to ‘abide’. I meditate on this line found at the bottom of page 29: “You are not under the law, with its inexorable do, but under grace, with its blessed believe…” I am nudged from my sleeping with this glad phrase, yet in my half-wakefulness can hear my childhood companion, that nagging question that has so often sent me wearily back to the ‘door’ to slumber: “What does God want from me? What am I suppose to do?” I am emboldened by Murray’s response found in the second paragraph on page 31, which begins, “Such is the relation…” and concludes with a phrase I have highlighted and just might have printed on my next t-shirt: “Union with Himself, and so with the Father, is His highest object.”
One reason that my first reading of this book was so compelling to me, was the concept of rest while yoked. Murray says in Chapter 2, “It is not the yoke, but resistance to the yoke, that causes the difficulty.” To be confidently yoked to one who is stronger means that I no longer need strain, stress, consider my own way or wonder what is right. Oh, to have the unfailing confidence in The One in whom I’m yoked! Lord, help my unbelief.
Chapter 3 opens with the question: “Is a life of unbroken fellowship with the Savior possible?” I read on, probably holding my breath for Murray’s answer, his observation to that ponderous question. His image of a ‘cord’ is so compelling to me that I actually drew a rather fat one meandering across my journal page. The cord of love that drew me ‘come’ is the cord that holds me to ‘abide’. I meditate on this line found at the bottom of page 29: “You are not under the law, with its inexorable do, but under grace, with its blessed believe…” I am nudged from my sleeping with this glad phrase, yet in my half-wakefulness can hear my childhood companion, that nagging question that has so often sent me wearily back to the ‘door’ to slumber: “What does God want from me? What am I suppose to do?” I am emboldened by Murray’s response found in the second paragraph on page 31, which begins, “Such is the relation…” and concludes with a phrase I have highlighted and just might have printed on my next t-shirt: “Union with Himself, and so with the Father, is His highest object.”
Lord, I want to 'get it'; teach me to believe this about You - truly, completely.
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