To desire to be more devotional is not an evidence of lack of devotion,
but, on the contrary, an evidence of devotion. Those who are the least
devotional have the least desire to be more devotional. The heart that is
fullest of love is happiest; and although it is happy and satisfied, yet
it longs to move. Oh, how we long to clasp our arms more tightly about
him! how we long to have him clasp his arms more tightly about us! how we
long to nestle more fondly and lovingly on his bosom! What rapture to our
love-flooded souls to receive of his caresses and hear his tender words!
To the soul in the ecstasy of its heavenly love, the world with its
pleasures has vanished away like a morning vapor.
It is not understood by all how and why we should have a desire to possess
more of that of which we are already full. It is the desire for
development; it is an innate desire; it is a principle planted in our
constitution under grace. Let me repeat what I have said elsewhere: Every
living thing consciously or unconsciously struggles to conform to type.
When the little plant bursts through the ground, it enters the race in
conforming to the type that it carries in its bosom. Thus, in the heart of
the acorn is a miniature oak-tree. The little chick carries within it an
image of the mother bird, to which it will naturally though unconsciously
conform.
In the natural world when things reach the highest point of development,
they begin to decay or deteriorate; but this is not true in the spiritual
world. Never in this life and possibly never in that life which is to come
shall we reach the fulness of the type, or, in other words, the highest
point of development. As the acorn or the little chick bears in its nature
an image of the parent, so the Christian bears in his soul the image of
God. This is the image to which he is to conform. Day after day he can
grow in grace. Day after day the beautiful graces of the Spirit can become
more beautiful and the exterior life be more perceptibly stamped with the
holy image of God. There must be progress, or there will be regress. When
a ball that has been thrown upward ceases to ascend, it begins to descend.
When the fulness of the type is reached, then begins the retrogression.
This is none the less true of spiritual things. The reason why there need
be no declension in love is because the highest point of development is
never attained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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