Second Summons

For twenty-two years I have been trying to make my Christian identity the most important enterprise of my life. The old saw "Tell me how you distribute your time and your money, and I'll tell you who you are" gives me a guarded assurance that I have not been deceiving myself. Despite moments of weakness, obvious imperfections, moral relapses, and moments of selfishness, the overall tenor of my life has been fidelity to the truth as I understand it.

            Jesus Christ is the truth for me. His Word influences my judgment, affects the decisions I make and the ones I refuse to make. His truth has helped me determine what is central in life and what is secondary, what is important and less important, what is crucial and what is marginal, fringe, peripheral. But is He real? Have I been "carrying coals to Newcastle"? Does rhetoric match reality? I have one life to live, and I want to live it to the hilt. Am I overcome by routine, perfunctory prayers, the ordinariness of life, by daily duties done over and over again? I trundle off to the desert to reexamine the direction of my life.

            And the Lord summons me a second time. In the chastening solitude of the Pennsylvania hills, He extends a second invitation: "I want you to accept My Father's love." I answered, "But I know that. It's old hat. I've come up to this deserted place seeking new insight. I'm in a fit of fervor, red-hot, wide open. I'll listen to anything You have to say. Go ahead, Lord, dazzle me. Lay a new word on me. I know the old one."

            And He answers, "That's just what you don't know-the old one. You have no idea of how much I love you. The moment you think you understand is the moment that you do not understand. I am God, not man. You travel the world telling others about Me-that I am a loving God. Your words are glib. How readily they roll off your tongue. My words are written in the blood of My only Son. The next time you preach of My life with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your prayer meeting apart. When you come at Me with your pedantic professionalism, I will expose you as a rank amateur. When you try to persuade others that you understand what you are talking about, I will reduce you to silence and hurl you flat on your face! You claim that you know that I love you. Then gird your loins like a man. Now I will question you, and you tell Me the answers.

            "Do you know that every time you tell Me you love Me, I say thank you?

            "When a fear-filled child comes to you in the darkness of a thunderstorm and asks with tear-streaked face, `Are you still here? Will you stay with me until it's light? Are you disgusted with me because I'm little and afraid? Are you going to give me away?' and you are grieved and saddened over the child's lack of trust, do you realize that you do the same thing to Me? Or don't you believe that I am at least as sensitive a father as you?

- Brennan Manning