Prayer - Lesson 9

Professor James Houston

Prayer

th732-09

Evidence of Gracious Affections for God (Part 2)

Lesson Transcript

In the seventh trait that Edwards is now going to describe, it is indeed a pause for us because what he's saying is that the accumulative effect of all of this so far is that we can expect a radical change in our inner lives. And when we think about having a radical change, we have to see how we have a change of temperament as well as a change of personality. These are things that we shall be looking at again later in terms of more recent reflection about them, but at this stage we will simply describe the difference.

Temperaments are psychosomatic. They're intrinsic to the effect of our body upon our spirits. So we talk about being a hyped up, A personality. But we’re really talking not about a personality; we’re talking about a temperament. And one of the things, of course, that we find very difficult to see changing in our life is that if this is part of the embodiment of my affections in my body then how can I expect body change to take place. So temperaments are the hardest element of our inner life to change. Perhaps Edwards was not aware how radical this has to be, but he was on that wavelength of recognising yes, yes, our temperaments have to change. But they're habituated. They're sunk deep within our bodily emotions or bodily functions of our life.

Personality is something easier to deal with. It's the context that we have socially with others. So we’re born with temperament, but we acquire personality. In other words, personality is the social inheritance that we've gained in our nurturing, in our relationships from early life onwards. And, of course, when we’re talking about wounds, we're talking about wounds of personality. Nevertheless, there has to be in this interchange between temperament and personality only the work of the spirit of God to make a radical change within us.

As Edwards reflects on this, he comes to the eighth sign of religious affections. It is a change of personality. We become gentler. We begin to see that one of the qualities of gentleness in our life is that it reflects on more balance in our personality, that we’re going to become more Christ-like, like the gentle Jesus, meek and mild, that we pray as a child. Look upon this little child. And [Adrian von Camm 00:03:53] is an interesting spiritual director of a past generation, who wrote a lovely meditative book on gentleness and the spiritual life. Don’t be violent with yourself; be gentle. Gently receive the word of the Lord. Gentleness is a kind of emotional patience with ourselves. We've a lot to learn, so be gentle. It's a long way ahead. So you don’t start racing down the track when you’re beginning a life's pilgrimage. It's a long haul. Prepare for it with persistence by being gentle. And it means also allow yourself to have a gentle inner understanding of how the Word of God is going to be revealed to you. It doesn’t come with a great blast. I mean, there are people, as we've seen, like Saul of Tarsus, that suddenly sees a great light, but that’s not common to most people.

It was Kitty Muggeridge, as she came to faith that she began to see that this quality of gentleness as with Pierre de Caussade was 00:05:30] was a gentle approach to the life of the Christian.

Then number nine. Edwards says we’re given a new tenderness of heart. We’re becoming increasingly more like a child, much less like our sophisticated, worldly adult. We begin to see that simplicity is a remarkable virtue because we're no longer cynical. We’re no longer living with complexity, mixed emotions. We’re beginning to have a much simpler awareness. You might say that complexity is akin to idolatry, to multiple choice, but simplicity is singleness of heart. This new tenderness, this new childlikeness, means that we live a more restful life with more inner peace. The pulse beat, the arrow prayer, for this stage might well be, 'Let my soul find rest in God alone.' And with gentleness and simplicity there's silence. We become much more silent because we’re more just enjoying His presence without words.

One of the things that I was once asked by somebody is you're saying nothing. What's happening? Oh, I said, everything's happening. That’s the attitude. You don’t need to articulate. What do lovers do when they hold hands? What are they doing? Nothing. What are they saying? Nothing. What’s happening? Everything. So it's that holding your lover's hand. Oh, we’re too vocal. We’re too expressive. But as a child in its mother's arms, so is the Psalmer's trust in God. It's looking into His eyes. And if you remember that the first breakthrough in child psychiatry that was developed by people like [Widdicock 00:08:39] after the war or during the war in Britain, they were saying isn't it a remarkable thing that the focus of a babe's eyes when it first opens its eyes to the light is 18 inches approximately. It's the difference between the mother's breast and the mother's eyes. With the breast, the child is fed physically, but with the eye of the mother on the child it's fed emotionally. So something very devastating happens to a small child when there are no eyes to look into. And so mothers who are depressed, even mothers just depressed, who can't look at their child's eye, are doing irrevocable damage to their child. But the eyes of the Lord are always upon us.

Number ten. There's the echo all the way through, but now it's articulated more loudly. There's a new balance in our emotions. There's symmetry. There's symphony. There's integration. These become the vocabulary of the soul. They're expressing much more a symphony of heart before God. And so that’s what we should realise. And balance, of course, and symmetry come from listening to other people as well, you see. They give us a different point of view. It's helpful to have friends for that reason, and especially friends that contradict us. We need people to contradict us to have a symmetry about our lives.

I find it very mischievous that I'm invited sometimes to consult Chinese churches in Vancouver that are, tragically, invariably dysfunctional and so they ask me how to advise them. And so I say well, put me in a position where I can attend the morning service and look into the pastor's wife's face. And so they put me there. And if she's saying oh, with her eyes almost closed with adoration, isn't he wonderful, isn't it marvellous, I know it's a very dysfunctional church. But if she's almost angry and saying nonsense, you can't say that, then I know it's a healthy community. In other words, this is part of symmetry: having someone who is helping you to see a different perspective. It's necessary for us.

And then number 11. Another sign of gracious affection is giving us an insatiable hunger and desire after God. Yes, our hearts are restless so we find our rest in God, but there's a sense in which it's not so much restless, but insatiable. It's a hunger and thirst that never goes away. It's intensified. And so when the Psalmer says, 'One thing have I sought in the Lord and that I will seek after, that I might be in the house of the Lord and to dwell in His temple,' is that the end of it? No, it's the beginning of a journey. And so we find in Psalm 73 there is this profound awareness that God has now set our hearts aflame for Him. One of the beautiful marks of Teresa of Avila that was later celebrated in a metaphysical poem about her that she was so enflamed by a flaming arrow of desire that pierced her heart. And if you remember, Botticelli in a beautiful exhibit of her Ecstasy in Rome, has her just simply pierced by the arrow of desire. It's actually a combination of consummate fire and consummate joy. We can never delight enough in God. Our joy becomes unspeakable and full of glory. It's never quenched.

And then finally, his 12th sign is that he devotes no less than half of all the material that he's already been describing to this 12th one. So what is the climax? Well, we might say it's anticlimax because gracious affections, prompted by the Holy Spirit, prompt us to live a much more practical life. Wow! Isn't this anticlimactic? No. And although yesterday in another recording we were talking about that being heavenly minded can be no earthly use, there's a profound sense in which being heavenly minded is most earthly useful. It's the practical quality of a life that really counts with other people. It's the fact that Jesus could see a woman at the well and He doesn’t sort of diagnose her. What he says is just give me a cup of water from the well. To break into her world is why we often have to be very simple and very practical. In other words, moral realism about relating with other people is just being very simple about it.

And so the Christian life is just the day-to-dayness of life. It's just the domesticity of being a practical Christian here and now. It's doing the dishes in the sink. It's helping to mop the floor, whatever it is. And so you need to go to the great art gallery in Amsterdam to see this in Dutch painting. What gives such glory to the faith of the Dutch reformers was that they were able to paint still life. They were able to show you a plate of apples and they're so realistic you want to eat one of them. And so this extraordinary innovation in art of still life is that you’re looking at reality in its domesticity. And who are the people that are associated within the portraiture of some of the great portraits of that period? They have a glow on their face. It's quite remarkable how you realise that when you're looking at their portraits, they're living in the presence of God. It's remarkable.

And so that is what I think we have to realise that is so necessary for us in the Christian life: to have this practicality. That we, as it were, we've been at the transfiguration. Now Jesus says it's time to deal with the child that has this problem. Get the job done now.