John maybe be quite right.

Hannah Whitall Smith was a Quaker born in 1832 makes some interesting comments as she talks about the decline of our first love relationship to one of obligation and duty. I would imagine all of us who have been around the Christian world for some time will have experienced that.

She describes it like this: The souls finds itself say instead the "May I" of love the "Must I" of duty. Service that has become more or less bondage, done purely as a matter of duty and often as a trial or a cross to bare. Things that were at first a joy and delight have become after a while weary tasks, performed faithfully but with a secret disinclination, or wish that they did not have to be at all or at least so often!

Her perspective is that it is altogether the way we look at things whether we consider them crosses or not. Seeing she died in 1911 she would probably be shocked at the fairly Consumer viewpoint that seems to have developed towards the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st Centuries. It would have probably appalled her with the state of Christianity in some quarters. "Our what's in it for me culture???"

John The Baptist

She goes on and says what we need to do is...............get believers to want to do the will of God as much as other people want to do their own will. This would seem a judgemental viewpoint until she says this.......and this is the idea of the gospel. It is what God intended for us ; and it is what he promised. it started to make a little more sense when we start to think in light of the gospel. In John 3 John the Baptist states that I must grow less so he(Jesus) can grow more. Loosely explained our own will must begin to decline to allow the Spirit of God to take over. Therefore we are subject to the guidance of the Spirit of God rather than our own more self interested carnal thoughts and desires.
This sounds easy but is difficult to practice but that does not make it wrong or undesirable. As many of us are a long way from "our first love" it will take a very conscious effort to hand our will over to God. But as any recovering addict will tell you it can be done!!

Hannah puts a finger on what many of us experience daily the weary treadmill of Christian duty. The thin end of religion rather, than relationship with our loving heavenly Father much like the older son in the Prodigal Son story of Luke 15.

Hannah's words may seem dated, patronising, harsh and judgemental in  a 21st century setting. However the truth is the truth which ever way you look at it. Jesus made no claim to being user friendly. Quite the contrary he said the path is narrow!

Until next time
Paul

As the poem says I took the Road less travelled and it made all the difference!