Brother Lawrence noted that there is a great difference between acts of the intellect and acts of the will. Acts of the intellect are comparatively of little value. Acts of the will are all important. Our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God. If I understand him properly in this, I agree. There is, it seems to me, far too much thinking and not nearly enough doing. We are great at deciding what is good; but not too good at doing it. I guess there is too much philosophy and theology and not enough service.
It seems we are moving, for example, once again into the political season. There is much discussion about how bad off our country is. It’s really easy to see that we are on a bad path. But there isn’t much being done about it. We complain about our politics; but good people shy away from running for office. We complain about the sin of abortion; but there’s not a lot of adopting going on. There is much that needs to be done; and little being done.
It’s easy in reviewing Brother Lawrence’s comments above to skip over the last part. That should be repeated. “Our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.” Just think what would happen if more of us put that into practice, limiting ourselves to acts of love and delighting ourselves in God. No more complaining, and a lot more doing. Less talk of the crime rate and more visiting of prisoners. Less shaking of our heads and more moving of our hands.
When we are young it is easy to say that “one day” we will serve, “one day” we will go out on the mission field, “one day” we will do ministry. I am in my early sixties and the days are dwindling to a precious few. There are not a lot of days left.
It’s time for Acts of Love.
Nick
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