The One Thing Needful

Beloved of God in Christ Jesus,

How goes it with your soul this day?

Christian, does this question sound strange to your ears? When your eyes read such a question, does your mind immediately bear you witness that the question speaks of an alien or distant reality too far away from your heart to have any familiarity of spirit? If so, then, "How goes it with your soul just now?" Why is there such distance in this instant? What road have you been traveling? Where does your heart venture? Does it not seem for the Christian that a question on “how your soul is” should be most natural? Perhaps we choose to avoid what is most real to us. Perhaps we simply do not know.

Each of us, if truly in Christ, must feel the inward tearing of our hearts, deep inward sadness, yet at times inexpressible joys. Our Lord did. Do you find it odd that you, as one in Him, should share similarity to Him in this regard? Are you familiar with the deep sorrows and joys that you find are yours with God alone? No human can carry the weight of these sorrows for you. They are God's, and He delights to hear you concerning them. He delights to receive them from you and give you His rest and peace in return. In like fashion, no human can truly receive your God-ward glorious praises and thanks! These, also, are God's, and He delights to hear you concerning them. By offering such to God, you are drawn more into His presence.

Why do we think it strange if we find no comfort in or from the world when we are not of the world? And, as sad as it is to say (yet I must acknowledge it), why do we think it strange to find no comfort in or from those in Christ with us, given that we share the same Lord? Is it because they have not the nature, capacity, nor interest for what is most alive within us? Can it be that “That” alone is God's, thus it is only for God and me to share and know? I must exist as an individual with God in this way. Do I? Do you?

Can you begin to comprehend the weight of Jesus' hidden relation to His Father? Jesus knew what was in man, and He committed Himself to the Father only. He lived at His deepest level separate with His Father. Do you yet see that you too, Christian, like Christ, in this way, are to walk in His steps? Beloved, do you know God as your life in your solitude, in your hidden-ness, that region of your interior where your deepest sorrows and greatest joys abide?

Whether or not the above description is my experience alone or one shared with you, I want to encourage you this day (and hopefully often) to ask yourself the question "What is the one thing needful?" For by allowing God to move in your life to reveal to and in you the answer, you will, I wager, see where life is found. God must show you the answer Himself. It is a work He delights in doing. Yours is to ask, to seek.

Christian, How goes it with your soul this day? What is the one thing needful?

“Divinity’s indwelling power sustained Him till nature was dead.”

(Joseph Swain, 1761-96)

A Reading By Carl Bogatzky

Carl Bogatzky lived in the 1500s. Below is the reading for November 19, which is taken from his devotional The Golden Treasury. Numerous editions of the devotional exist. Lines from an unidentified hymn conclude the reading. Enjoy.

The Lord is not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being. Acts 17. 27,28. Even the very hairs on your head are all numbered. Luke 7. 7.

Oh the close and tender love of the Lord over his people. Nothing is so mean, but it is under the providence of God, since even the least can either hurt or profit the soul. And how sweet is it to observe his footsteps, even in the minutest things, and to be satisfied that we may trust our greater and lesser concerns to his care! O Lord, grant that I may never swerve from, nor do anything without thee; but that my goings in and goings out may be always done in thy presence, as if I had to do with none but thee; nay, as if we both lived together alone in the world. Oh that I could transact all my affairs with thee alone, and in all places look upon thee as if thou only a God for me. Let me carefully mark the inward workings of thy grace, and the outward tokens of thy providence, so as daily to have a true sense of thy gracious presence in everything, more or less important, and thereby to be ever strengthened in faith, and kept in a composed state of mind; considering that nothing happens by mere chance, but all is wisely ordered by thy providential care to our good; firmly believing, if anything goes contrary to expectation, that something better will follow in its stead, if we can only can be quiet and wait the time.

God that must stoop to view the skies,
And bow to see what angels do,
Down to our earth he cast his eyes,
And bends his footsteps downwards too.

He overrules all mortal things,
And manages our mean affairs,
On humble souls the King of kings
Bestows his counsels and his cares.

A Hymn of Paul Gerhardt

Many of you may have only become aware of Paul Gerhardt through the mention of his name, and that of his wife Mary, by reading the previous blog post. I wanted to share with you a hymn of his that he read Mary, at her request, during the last moments of her earthly life. I trust your reading of it will not only convey Gerhardt's excellence with hymn writing, but also encourage you to consider if these word would so strengthen you at your final moments of earthly life. May the truths reflected in this hymn find home in your heart.


"Thou blessed Shepherd hail!
Whose hands all pierced and riven,
Are with the holy roses filled,
Whose sweetness gladdens heaven.
The bleeding prints of nails,
Which tore them on the tree,
These are the roses which Thy hands
Bear, blooming still for me.

Wide open are Thy hands,
Paying with more than gold
The awful debt of guilty men,
Forever and of old--
Ah, let me grasp those hands,
That we may never part,
And let the power of their blood,
Sustain my fainting heart.

Wide open are Thine arms,
A fallen world to embrace,
To take to love and endless rest,
Our whole forsaken race.
Lord, I am sad and poor,
But boundless is Thy grace;
Give me the soul-transforming joy,
For which I seek Thy face.

Draw all my mind and heart,
Up to Thy throne on high,
And let Thy sacred cross exalt
My spirit to the sky.
O, let me die with Thee,
Thy bleeding heart beside;
Let sin which lives and reigns in me,
With Thee be crucified.

To these Thy loving hands,
Whose pangs were wrought by me,
My trembling lips I fain would press,
To all eternity;
To these Thy mighty hands
My spirit I resign,
Living, I live alone to Thee,
Dying, alone am Thine."


(from Pictures from the Life of Paul Gerhardt)

A Moment of Reflection

Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ,

May you this day enjoy true communion with the triune God.

I have pondered what to write of late. My heart and mind have been centered on God's love toward me, in me, and through me back to Him and to others, His love resident in others, His love active throughout the world throughout all time, and what God’s active love in a particular individual looks like as it sifts and separates the old earth-bound self from all that is of grace from God (the new self, Christ in me/in you). This manner of thought and reflection has been part of my life daily for many years, especially as it pertains to the difference between lust (hidden or open) and love, and still I stand amazed at God's love, confess I fall short of acknowledging and giving His love through my life to others, and I continually struggle to get my mind and heart around His love towards fallen and sinful humanity. The more I see and think I comprehend, the greater the wonder of it all.

I have comforted myself recently by recognizing that if I could one day say “I comprehend (in fullness or in complacency) God's love,” then I've the wrong view of it and take it in too human a form. It is by distinguishing God's love from any expression humanly that I begin to actually see and understand Him more. I am thus drawn deeper into communion with God as Trinity. For, as the scriptures say, the love of God is beyond understanding. His love is known experientially, not merely by the understanding. One must, as an individual, learn and know God's love personally.

Do we, you and I Christian, have some things wrong in our understanding about God, His love, and our relations with Him, our Christian lives lived before and with others, that at death we'll suddenly see (if given the grace and time for reflection at death), and seeing will we have such clarity of our lives that we'll spend our final moments in sadness and regret, wishing we had been different people than we know ourselves to be? Who will you inescapably acknowledge yourself to be when you transition into His presence? Who would you, today, like to see yourself as instead?

May I share with you the following account (the degree of fact or fiction I do not know) of a lady married to a pious man named Paul Gerhardt, who himself is (in fact) one of Germany's noblest hymn writers of all time, was a faithful preacher of God's word and shepherd of God's people, the life of which has inspired me to think and desire "living by conscience" as a rule, and whose story with his dear wife, even if represented with some fiction, is a life to which any Christian should feel deep kinship. From her death bed, Mary speaks:

"The picture of my life has never stood before me as it does now; it seems as if I had received clearer eyes, and could penetrate the darkness of my earthly pilgrimage, and see down into the very bottom of my heart and conscience. Ah! dear husband, this is not a cheering sight for me. I behold nothing but imperfections; I see that my sins are more than the sands on the seashore. Alas! how often have I comforted myself with false hopes! How often imagined that I had done well! How often have I reminded the Lord of my labors and toils, that he might reward me for them! But now all at once I see that I rested in a false peace."

Dearly beloved of God, consider these words from Mary, a pious woman with actual life struggles beyond what you and I will likely ever experience. May you this day quiet yourself before your God to whom you will stand, a moment when you will know as you are known by Him, and at least ponder where in your heart you possess the foundations of false peace. Casting those idols away, those grounds of false peace, you will have more of Christ and His peace, and you will spare yourself at death sorrowful reflections and regret.

Move toward God, dear Christian. Flee that which is of earth, that which perishes, that which cannot satisfy the soul.