Spiritual Energies in Daily LifeJones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Religion
Spiritual Energies in Daily Life
Jones, Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew)
Spiritual life
There are no doubt a great many persons working for the good of others
and for the betterment of the world who yet do not succeed in securing
the peace of God. They are in a frequent state of nerves; they are busy
here and there, rushing about perplexed and weary, fussy and irritable.
With all their efforts to promote good causes, they do not quite attain
the poise and calm of interior peace. They are like the tumultuous
surface of the ocean with its combers and its spray, and they seldom know
the deep quiet like that of the underlying, submerged waters far below
the surface. The trouble with them is that they are carrying themselves
all the time. They do not forget themselves in their aims of service.
They are like the ill person who is so eager to get well that he keeps
watching his tongue, feeling his pulse, and getting his weight. Peace
does not come to one who is watching continually for the results of his
work, or who is wondering what people are saying about it, or who is
envious and jealous of other persons working in the same field, or who is
touchy about “honor” or recognition. Those are just the attitudes which
frustrate peace and make it stay away from one’s inner self.
There is a higher level of work and service and ministry, which, thank
God, men like us can reach. It is attained when one swings out into a
way of life which is motived and controlled by genuine sincere love
and devotion, when consecration obliterates self-seeking, when in some
measure, like Christ, the worker can say without reservations, “Not my
will but thine be done.”
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT ENERGIES THAT WORK
I
TRYING THE BETTER WAY
A very fresh and unusual type of book has recently appeared under
the title, “_By An Unknown Disciple_.” It tells in a simple, direct,
impressive way, after the manner of the Gospels, the story of Christ’s
life and works and message. It professes to be written by one who was an
intimate disciple, and who was therefore an eye-witness of everything
told in the book. It is a vivid narrative and leaves the reader deeply
moved, because it brings him closer than most interpretations do into
actual presence of and companionship with the great Galilean. The first
chapter is a re-interpretation of the scene on the eastern shore of
Gennesaret, where Jesus casts the demons out of the maniac of Geresa. A
man on the shore of the lake told Jesus, when he landed there with his
disciples in the early morning, that it was not safe for any one to go
up the rugged hillside, because there were madmen hidden there among the
tombs: “people possessed by demons, who tear their flesh, and who can be
heard screaming day and night.”
“How do you know they are possessed by demons?” asked Jesus.
“What else could it be?” said the man. “There are none that can master
them. They are too fierce to be tamed.”
“Has any man tried to tame them?” asked Jesus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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