This is what the
Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of
Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and
trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Isaiah 30:15
Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to
humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He
will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a
description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back
without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It
cannot happen. Very well then, we must go through with it. But the same badness
which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us?
Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting
into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning
powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that
is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand
while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are
forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our
hand while we do it.
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