Within Reformed Christianity of almost all flavours, there is an entire spectrum of corporate and individual devotional practice. Within Evangelicalism prayer tends to be a combination of pragmatism and mysticism, extempore vernacular and inspired corporate worship, brash intercessory claiming of God’s blessings as if God were a bank and we were demanding, as of right, an increased overdraft; and on the other hand, those for whom prayer is humble patient waiting on God, whose depths of mercy and mystery, require silent wonder, wordless adoration, and only then ecstatic praise.
Frances Ridley Havergal could write of both. Her most famous hymn, 'Take my life and let it be’ is a personal inventory of all the dimensions of human life and experience that have to be handed over to God. But it is one of her less known poems that demonstrates this woman's sweep of intellect and mystical depth. Havergal’s vision of God inspires breathless, adoring wonder, and places her amongst the genuinely mystical poets.
In ‘Thoughts of God’, Havergal offers, not her own faltering thoughts, but a bold description of the inner mind of the Almighty. She knew she was treading on holy ground and her imagination hesitates before being drawn inwards and upwards by the beauty of her vision. The poem ends in serenity, repose and the contemplative joy of those who know they are loved:
They say there is a hollow, safe and still,
A point of coolness and repose
Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell
Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell,
Which the bright walls of fire enclose
In breachless splendour, barrier that no foes
Could pass at will .. .
So in the centre of these thoughts of God,
Cyclones of power, consuming glory fire –
As we fall o'erawed
Upon our faces, and are lifted higher
By His great gentleness, and carried nigher
Than unredeemed angels, till we stand
Even in the hollow of His hand –
Nay, more! we lean upon His breast-
There, there we find a point of perfect rest
And glorious safety. There we see
His thoughts to usward, thoughts of peace
That stoop to tenderest love; that still increase
With increase of our need; that never change,
That never fail, or falter, or forget ...
Gentleness, intimacy, perfect rest, tenderest love, grace that increases with increase of need, and a thoughtful God who never fails or falters or forgets, are ideas which provide the secure emotional substructure of her theology of consecration.
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