Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Unfolding Light and grace


As I read Cowper in The Cloud of Witness readings today (Lyttelton Gell, 163), it reminded me of how educationalist Charlotte Mason says that the child comes to know who God is, his character and nature, by degree through the unfolding of the Scripture itself.  She also believes that it isn’t 'how much the child knows, but how much he cares' that places the scholar in wide spaces of rich living.

This morning, I reflect upon the idea that this is true for us too; though ‘faint and slow’, we grow from what we have learned in the light of the Word as we choose to know him more and are changed to reflect Christ a little more. I’ve been reading through the wisdom literature of the Bible; it continually reminds me that wisdom is to be desired above all things and is chosen by those who would know God. 

Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame
            Celestial, though they knew not whence it came,
Derived from the same source of Light and grace,
That guides the Christian in his swifter race;
Their judge was Conscience, and her rule their law;
That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe,
Led them, however faltering, faint and slow,
From what they knew to what they wished to know.
                        ~ Cowper