Victorious Living. E. Stanley Jones
choice, not it into them. It organizes life around itself as the Ganges gathers the lesser streams into itself. It remains the permanent abiding fact amid the flow and flux of feeling.
But the decision of the will is not a bare, hard, unfeeling thing. It has its emotional tone, and the more decisive the choice the deeper the emotional tone. But whether the Ganges is made rough by storms or smooth by calm, it flows on its life-way. So with you. Yours is a permanent lifechoice. Don’t raise the issue again every time your feelings change.
O Christ, you do not change, no matter how my feelings change. You will abide in my heart whether I feel you there or not. I thank you that, as I make the permanent choice, you take up your permanent abode. Amen.
Week 9 Sunday
Week 9 Sunday
The Take-off
Matthew 17:20; Acts 9:17-22; Galatians 5:7; Philippians 1:6
The first days of adjustment after one makes a life decision are the most difficult. Infant mortality in the kingdom is as devastating as infant mortality in India. But most infant mortality in India is preventable. So too, if there are casualties in the new life in the early days, they are preventable.
There is no dodging the fact that the first few days and weeks are crucial. An expert in airplanes told me that it takes twice the power for the machine to rise from the water as it does for it to fly. The earth and water seem loath to let it go. It takes twice the power to break with the old life as it does to live the new life after new habits have been formed.
That need not appall you. This morning in my quiet time I came across this verse, “Who will roll away the stone? . . . And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back” (Mark 16:3-4). We see the difficulties like huge stones before us, and lo, as we get to them one by one, they are rolled back. Remember the Silent Partner also at work is practiced at rolling back stones.
First of all, let us remember that there are certain laws of the spiritual life, which are as definite as the laws that underlie our physical lives. I do not mean that a set of rules is given into your hands for you to obey. The Christian life is not mechanically and minutely obeying a set of rules. It is a love affair. And lovers don’t sit down and look at the rules to see what is to be done next. Nevertheless, even in a love affair there are underlying laws of friendship which have to be obeyed or else there will be shipwreck. One of the reasons so many casualties take place is because we are haphazard. And if we are haphazard, we shall not be happy.
O Christ of the disciplined will, teach me to live the life according to your way. I come stumblingly, but I come. I am set to obey; teach me. Amen.
Week 9 Monday
Commit Yourself
1 Kings 18:21; Luke 19:1-10; John 9:25
One of the first things to do is to commit yourself. The Christian life is the beginning of a life as different from ordinary life as ordinary humans are different from animals. You are different, and therefore you will act differently. The temptation will be to raise no issues, to upset no life-habits, to take on protective resemblance to your environment and to settle down, hoping that the inward life will somehow or other manifest by itself. It won’t. You must decide it shall.
Professor William James, speaking from the standpoint of sound psychology, says in regard to any decision: “When once the judgment is decided, let a man commit himself irretrievably. Let him put himself in a position where it will lay on him the necessity of doing more, the necessity of doing all. Let him take a public pledge if the case allows.” This is sound psychology and therefore sound Christianity. Note that word irretrievably. Leave no open door behind you. The mind in a fearful moment may be tempted to take that way of escape. You are no longer a person of an escape mentality. A business owner, after making the great decision, called his employees together the next day and told them what had happened to him. All of the employees respect him.
I was recently called out at night by a servant who told me there was a man waiting to see me in the garden. As I approached this figure in the dark I thought I was being “held up,” for he had a handkerchief over his face and his hands in his pockets. But he wanted to find power over habits and to find a new life. I did my best with him, but went away with little hope in my heart for him. He was afraid that I and others might recognize him.
Off with the handkerchief, come out of dark gardens where we hide behind bushes. Stand before the world open and unashamed and decisive. Be ashamed of nothing but Sin. Commit yourself.
O Christ, I offer you my resolves. May I take the first bold steps. And help me to take them today. Amen.
Week 9 Tuesday
Discipline Yourself
Mark 9:49; 1 Corinthians 9:27; 1 Timothy 4:7-8, 16; 2 Timothy 1:7 (Moffatt)
The word discipline and the word disciple have a close kinship. The fact is they are one—no discipline, no disciple. One of the needs of the present day is putting discipline back into life. We have reacted so strongly against the imposed authority and taboos of the Victorian age that we have swung into a license, which we thought was a liberty. We are now finding out that it isn’t. Teachers have said the child must be left to guide itself, which meant, in large measure, that the teacher did not want to take on the discipline involved in the guidance and discipline of youth. Afraid of youth, the teacher rationalized fear. But both teacher and youth need discipline. Otherwise we shall arrive where Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel arrived. He spent his life dissecting and debunking his own moods, and then cried out in his Journal:
What a strange creature I am! If I were charged with the education of someone, I should seek what is best everywhere and in everything. But for myself I no longer have the taste to reprimand and direct. I merely examine myself and state my preference. Psychology has replaced morality. That is the effect of this flaccid existence that dispenses with adventures and duties, with work and purpose. I no longer know courage save by name, and hope save by hearsay.
Amiel grasped for liberty and found disintegration.
I do not mean that you will have a discipline imposed on you, willy-nilly. You will accept a discipline of your own choosing, under the guidance of God. It will thus be both yours and God’s. In our ashram we accept a discipline that we arrive at after corporate prayer and consultation. It is not handed to us. We accept it from within. Sit down in thought and prayer, asking for guidance as you take on yourself a spiritual discipline. As you accept a discipline, then are you a disciple.
O Christ, help me this day to find your yoke and take it upon me. For your discipline is my desire. Amen.
Week 9 Wednesday
Establish the Prayer Habit
Psalm 5:3; Luke 11:1-13; Acts 3:1; Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 4:2
Yesterday we suggested that you take on yourself a spiritual discipline, not merely for the sake of the discipline, but because these disciplines gather up the scattered rays and focus them upon the business of finer living.
The first discipline must be to establish the prayer habit. In college I decided how much time I could give to prayer, and I fixed there a prayer habit that has been with me all these years. If for some reason I do not keep it—which is very rare—I feel that a chord has dropped out of my symphony. Fix the habit, even if you have to get up earlier to do it. The other morning I got up earlier than usual and saw the Big Dipper and took a drink of the beauty of the silent heavens. If I had slept, I should have missed it. Get up earlier and drink. God’s dippers are full.
A great Christian in England was very sleepy-headed as a youth, and no matter how much he resolved, he slept past his prayer time. He decided on desperate measures—as penalty he would throw a guinea into the river every time he missed his prayer time. He did this for several mornings and sadly paid the penalty, a heavy one for a poor student. But at last the mind responded, the prayer habit was fixed, and he became one of the outstanding spiritual men of his generation.
Don’t fool yourself into saying that you don’t need