Readings

Spiritual reading is, or at least can be, second only to prayer as a developer and support of the inner life. -Evelyn Underhill

2 Kings 6 tells this really great story of Elisha with his servant in the city of Dothan. Israel at the time was at war with Aram, the king of Syria, and every time the king would plan an attack on Israel, the prophet Elisha would let the king of Israel know about it, and so Syria’s plans would be thwarted. This, obviously, hacked off King Aram.

Once he discovered where Elisha was, he sent his troops to go kill him. One morning, Elisha’s servant stepped outside and saw the whole Syrian army surrounding them, and he totally lost heart. He panicked, ran back inside, and asked Elisha what they should do. The prophet reassured him and prayed, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” And so, God opened his eyes, and he saw stretched out before him and surrounding both him and the army “horses and chariots of fire” (v. 17). It was an entire angelic army sent to surround and protect Elisha and his servant.

Of this story, Dallas Willard comments, “God enabled the young man to see the powers of his realm that totally interpenetrated and upheld all the normal, visible reality around him (even the Syrian army itself). Every working of visible reality is a movement within the encompassing Logos, the sustaining Word of God, and it rests on nothing else but God through his Son (Heb 1:1-3). How we need our Elishas today who, by life and teaching as well as by prayer, might open our eyes to see the reality of God’s presence all around us, in every bit of matter as well as beyond!” (emphasis mine).

And we have them, those who by calling and by prescription are able to help open us up to the reality of God and his Kingdom. This page is an evolving collection of a few scraps of words and wisdom from them, pieces of maps I have discovered by those who have gone before, by travelers and sojourners on the Way. Their eyes, their wisdom and hearts, their prayers have the power to open our eyes.

Eugene Peterson points out that the word translated as “growl” in Isaiah 31:4 in Hebrew (hagah) is the same word used in other places in Scripture to mean “meditate.” The picture is of a lion gnawing on, chewing on, injesting and digesting a morsel of food. It then gives him strength and stamina. It becomes a part of his make-up, his very cells.  “There is a certain kind of writing that invites this kind of reading,” he says, “soft purrs and low growls as we taste and savor, anticipate and take in the sweet and spicy, mouth-watering and soul-energizing morsel of words – ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good!’ (Ps. 34:8)”

May you “growl” over these morsels “as a lion of a young lion growls over his prey” (Isa 31:4).