Drawing Near

God calls us to draw near to Him. Hear are a few excerpts from Disciplines for the Inner Life, an excellent devotional by Bob Benson, Sr. & Michael W. Benson.

Opening Prayer
Eternal God, you have been the hope and joy of many generations, and who in all ages has given men the power to seek you and in seeking to find you, grant me, I pray you, a clearer vision of your truth, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love. Amen.
John Baillie in A Diary of Private Prayer

Read Psalm 46

Hymn “I Know Whom I Have Believed”

I know not why God’s wondrous grace
To me He hath made known;
Nor why, unworthy, Christ in love
Redeemed me for His own.

I know not how this saving faith
To me He did impart,
Nor how believing in His Word
Wrought peace within my heart . . .

I know not when my Lord may come,
At night or noonday fair,
Nor if I’ll walk the vale with Him,
Or meet Him in the air.

But I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.
D.W. Whittle

He is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity. It is an identity we can’t discover for ourselves, that others can’t discover in us – the mystery of who we really are. How we have chased around the world for answers to that riddle, looked in the eyes of others for some hint, some clue, hunted in the multiple worlds of pleasure and experience and self-fulfillment for some glimpse, some revelation, some wisdom, some authority to tell us our right name and our true destination.

But there was, and is, only One who can tell us this: the Lord himself. And he wants to tell us, he has made us to know our reason for being and to be led by it. But it is a secret he will entrust to us only when we ask, and then in his own way and his own time. He will whisper it to us not in the made rush and fever of our striving and our fierce determination to be someone, but rather when we are content to rest in him, to put ourselves into his keeping, into his hands. Most delightfully of all, it is a secret he will tell us slowly and sweetly, when we are willing to spend time with him: time with him who is beyond all time.
From Clinging – The Experience of Prayer by Emilie Griffin

. . . we live in tents, not houses, for spiritually we are always on the move. We are on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the hours of our watch or the days of the calendar, for it is a journey out of time into eternity.

. . . Christianity is more than a theory about the universe, more than teachings written down on paper; it is a path along which we journey – in the deepest and richest sense, the way of life.

From The Orthodox by Kallistos Ware