Posts tagged having
what is the "givenness" of your life?
a givenness to having to have a haircut
What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?
Having to have a haircut.
“Some years ago I got up one morning intending to have my hair cut in preparation for a visit to London, and the first letter I opened made it clear I need not go to London.
So I decided to put the haircut off too.
But then there began the most unaccountable little nagging in my mind, almost like a voice saying, “Get it cut all the same. Go and get it cut.”
In the end I could stand it no longer.
I went.
Now my barber at that time was a fellow Christian and a man of many troubles whom my brother and I had sometimes been able to help.
The moment I opened his shop door he said, “Oh, I was praying you might come today.”
And in fact if I had come a day or so later I should have been of no use to him.
It awed me; it awes me still.
But of course one cannot rigorously prove a causal connection between the barber’s prayers and my visit.
It might be telepathy. It might be accident.
Our assurance is quite different in kind from scientific knowledge. It is born out of our personal relation to the other parties; not from knowing things about them, but from knowing them.
Those who best know a man best know whether, when he did what they asked, he did it because they asked.
I think those who best know God will best know whether He sent me to the barber’s shop because the barber prayed.” C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night and Other Essays
…not from knowing things about them, but from knowing them.
I have a GIVENNESS NOW to having to have a haircut.
a givenness to not having a new year
What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?
Not having a new year.
“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year.
It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.
Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.
Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards.
Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.” G.K. Chesterton, Daily News
…you anew.
I have a GIVENNESS NOW to not having a new year.
a givenness to the having of the honey
What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?
The having of the honey.
“There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace.
The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its sweetness.” Jonathan Edwards, A Divine and Supernatural Light
…the actual sense of its sweetness.
I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the having of the honey.
