...without interruption

"Lord, do Thou turn me all into love, and all my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption.” – Jeremy Taylor

I know what you’re thinking…”Finally she is quoting someone other than Amy Carmichael!!!” Well, yes…but I did come across it reading A Chance to Die yesterday. So it is still indirectly from my Amma. :)

I am so easily side-tracked. Let me quote that again…

"Lord, do Thou turn me all into love, and all my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption.”

I don’t know that I can put into words what this prayer means to me…the effect it had on me. Without boring you by laying my heart completely bare and spilling all of its contents on this page…suffice it to say I was hit with a realization that was surprising to me, yet plainly obvious to everyone else. It shook me and scared me a bit.

Actually I had a lot of “shaking and scary” moments this weekend.

The specifics are not important, really but if you care enough, just go down the list in your head: family, friends, work, home, finances, car, weight, love, prayer, matters of habit, effective service, …just everything…I was either tested, stretched or shown my lack in all of these and more over the course of the past 3 days. I was also freshly confronted with my complete inability to carry out even the smallest act of obedience on my own! Freshly reminded that his grace and his grace alone is what keeps me on solid ground and from plunging headlong over the cliff, freefalling into sin with abandon.

He has put his bit and bridle in my mouth and has broken me…though I do buck from time to time, though there are moments when I want to break out into a gallop or go down another path, He keeps me on course by His word and His truth and the power of His spirit. And I am so thankful!

Yet, I would very much like less of this being reigned in by force…by humbling or having the proverbial anvil dropped on my head. I would like very much to know obedience prompted by love, and without interruption. I would like to see something coming… a stray thought, a fleeting emotion, a habitual reflex …and by His might and because of His love - STOP.

Which reminds me of something directly from Amma:
"If, the moment I am conscious of the shadow of self crossing my threshold, I do not shut the door, and keep that door shut, then I know nothing of Calvary love."

That is what I want...to see the shadow and shut the door...not let it saunter in and walk around a while and then fight to shove it out! I know I will never be perfect, but I should like to try as best I can…to be Holy as He is holy…and to have to repent less. To flee from shadows more than I have to fight off sin.