My Life in Christ

"Christ in me, the hope of glory"

So I discovered Charles C. Grafton today. The other day, Margaret was telling me about a conversation she had had with her rector about how it’s curious that some theologians often can be saying the same thing, but somehow we have an affinity for one and not the other.

So true.

Grafton just immediately draws me in. In A Journey Godward of a Servant of Jesus Christ, his chapter XI, “My Life in Christ,” — despite making me chortle as I remembered Lionel and his “My Life in Kenya”! — is strikingly eloquent:

“EVERY life is full of the wonders of God's providential care. The great Love watches over us and leads the responsive soul onward. It turns our very falls into stepping-stones for our progress. Every soul in glory will look back on a providentially lighted way and a guiding Hand. There will arise from all the saints an eternal song of thanksgiving to Him Who redeemed us. How unwearied was the love that perpetually restored and renewed us! How great has been His goodness! And how great His mercy! How everlastingly progressive shall be the response of our love! Angels adoringly love Him, but can they love Him as we must, who have been saved by His Precious Blood? The saints in Glory adoringly praise Him for the thousand pardons that perfected them in grace. The Christian soul here in its time of struggle, while feeling its sinfulness, yet trusting in the merits of Christ, presses on to the mark of its high calling. Every soul is a marvellous monument of divine grace, and its secret is with the Lord.”

Don’t you want to read that again? Goodness. Such a beautiful depiction of life, which he describes in his first chapter as a “stumbling on towards God.” Such a beautiful depiction of God’s grace. In his exploration of grace, Grafton brings in the experience of the prodigal son: “The sense of his misery may set him thinking, but it is the thought of the Father's love that leads him home.” Our lives in Christ, God’s love leading us home. Oh, the wonder of it all.