Today my morning devotions took me back to a cherished voice in the Church’s history. Her words have spoken great truths to me since I began to train for ministry. Today I read exerts from the work of Jeanne Bouvier de la Mothe Guyon. She is known better in church history as Madame Guyon.
Born in 1648 in a small town that was near the French city of Orleans, Madame Guyon wrote extensively about mysticism and her own personal religious experience. Following th death of her husband she pressed in deeper into her work and found God waiting for her along each step. Throughout her life the church supported, and condemned, her writing and reflections on prayer and spiritual exercises. At times she was deemed too progressive and then too conservative for the church— an interesting claim to make.
She remains an influential voice in the Christian church to this day and someone who we can learn a great deal from.
My attention was drawn to her work entitled: Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. In this reprinted work, she writes these words for the church to consider on the topic of abandonment, or surrender, to Christ. I encourage you to read them over multiple times because Madame Guyon’s meaning can be hidden if we read too quickly through what she is writing. She wrote:
What is abandonment? If we can understand what it is, perhaps we can better lay hold of it. Abandonment is casting off all your cares. Abandonment is dropping all your needs. This includes spiritual needs. Let me repeat that, for it is not easily grasped. Abandonment is laying aside, forever, all of your spiritual needs. All Christians have spiritual needs; but the believer who has abandoned himself to the Lord no longer indulges in the luxury of being aware of spiritual needs. Rather, he gives himself over completely to the disposal of God. . . All your concerns go into the hand of God. You forget yourself, and from that moment on you think only of Him. By continuing to do this over a long period of time. . . your heart will be free and at peace.
I find her words provocative and yet challenging to me.
It feels like Madame Guyon beckons me to travel with God to a place that feels almost inaccessible to my heart. As someone who worries and over-thinks a great deal in my day, and as someone who obsesses over much, giving over all that worry about, and all that I am to God, feels utterly challenging. It almost feels impossible for me to live like this. I can, and I suspect that you can as well, see the benefit in living in this way. Yet this understanding does not make abandonment or surrender any easier to employ as a practice.
As a people who are trying to live out their faith, we are needy more often than we are humble. We claim to embrace a posture of faith and reliance upon God, but if that is the case then why does Madame Guyon’s words sting so greatly when we consider how to adopt and apply them?
Certainly I am not the only person struggling today with giving all of my needs and desires over to God. I wonder what our faith will resemble and become if we take the lessons Madame Guyon speaks of and apply them to our lives?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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