This morning in the silence...

This morning in the silence I was struck by the fact that - although I often feel that I struggle with maintaining a little life of prayer and "keeping low" in what some would describe as the privilege of my life here in the quiet west country - in many ways this is no more than our human susceptibility to what is traditionally called temptation. We are frail, temporary creatures, and we react in often very predictable ways to our own circumstances.

When we find ourselves in hardship, whether through poverty, ill-health or any other trouble, we tend towards bitterness, which keeps us from appreciating, or even seeing, let alone gratitude for, God's blessings; though admittedly they may be hidden and obscure, "treasures of darkness" (Isaiah 45.3 NRSV).

When we find ourselves living peaceful lives of relative comfort (what the Bible often refers to as "prosperity", rather  than the Fortune 500 variety!) we tend towards complacency, as though we could somehow take credit for our good fortune - a point of view that a sudden illness will quickly correct. They are God's blessings anyway, and he knows why he has given them to us for a while.

It's coming to seem to me that all we can do is grow where we are planted (1 Corinthians 7.17-24) and remain there to grow the best fruit we can.*

George Fox, as so often, has a word for this:

Keep in the wisdom of God that spreads over all the earth, the wisdom of the creation, that is pure. Live in it; that is the word of the Lord God to you all, do not abuse it; and keep down and low; and take heed of false joys that will change. (Qfp 19.32)

as does the Psalmist:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
    my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
    too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
    like a weaned child with its mother;
    my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
    from this time on and forevermore.  

(Psalm 131)

* Unless indeed we are direct victims of abuse or injustice, in which case God's call is presumably to come out of there, and our duty to follow; but that is another story.