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How Do I Become Happy in God? 30.1.2025 04:00

Sometimes, the story of another Christian’s joy in God serves to kindle our own. Pastor John takes us to a remarkable moment in the life of Hudson Taylor.

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The Mighty Ministry of Song: How Praise Shapes the Saints 29.1.2025 04:00

When the people of God gladly sing of his riches together, the saints mature, Satan retreats, and the word of Christ goes forth.

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Teach Me, Help Me, Thrill Me: A Guide to the Longest Psalm 29.1.2025 04:00

The Grand Canyon is spectacular and vast: 277 miles long, up to 18 miles wide, and over a mile deep. Covering about 1,900 square miles, the Canyon is roughly the size of the state of Delaware. While millions visit this national park each year, the vast majority see the Canyon only from the rim and never venture onto the trails to explore its wonders.

Think of Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, as “the Grand Psalm.” At 176 verses, this single psalm is longer than Ephesians and 28 other books of the Bible! It includes many familiar lines, such as, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (verse 105). But studying the whole psalm is a bit like setting off on a hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

After a few hours on the trail in the blistering desert sun, weary hikers might conclude that they’ve seen enough of the limestone, sandstone, and shale rock formations and head for the air-conditioned gift shop. You might have similar thoughts about Psalm 119, as the verses seem to run together as they speak again and again about the Scriptures as God’s law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, rules, word, and promise.

To get our bearings, note that Psalm 119 is an intricate acrostic poem with 22 stanzas corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet: aleph, beth, and so forth. Just as the mighty Colorado River runs through the Grand Canyon with its sheer rock walls, so the poetic form of the Grand Psalm provides the walls through which a river of passion and praise flows. The inspired poet was so captivated by the loveliness of God’s word, so confident in its truthfulness, that he penned the Bible’s longest, most intricate poem celebrating the Book God gave us for our good.

Let’s explore three themes or “trails” in and through this Grand Psalm — devotion, dependence, and delight — to renew and deepen our love for the Book of God.

Devotion

The first trail through the Grand Psalm is devotion. Devotion is like checking the map, choosing your route, and setting off with eager expectation. We must orient our minds, hearts, and lives to God and his word. The psalm opens with a double blessing that captures this emphasis on heartfelt devotion:

Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
     who walk in the law of the Lord!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
     who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,
     but walk in his ways! (verses 1–3)

“Blessed” means truly happy and favored by God (as in Psalm 1:1). Our society defines the good life by accumulation of possessions, by personal achievements and autonomy. But the good life is actually found in seeking the true God, keeping his ways, and being happy in him.

And then, after only three verses of speaking about God, the worshiper speaks directly to God. We typically think of Psalm 119 as a lofty poem about God’s word. But it is also the most sustained “I-to-you” prayer in the Bible. The Grand Psalm reflects personal, passionate, and honest communion with the living God — in other words, devotion to the living God.

Time and again, this psalm ponders precious truths about God’s character and ways. “You are good and do good” (verse 68). In verses 4–8, the poet rehearses reality (“You told me to carefully keep your word”), makes a request (“I want to keep it”), then expresses his resolve (“I intend to keep it!”). These and other verses of the Grand Psalm summon us to a life of deep devotion, a life marked by confidence in God’s word and wholehearted commitment to God’s ways.

This first trail through the Grand Psalm orients us to what is true, right, and good and motivates us to trust God and seek him. The word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (verse 105), so the worshiper prays, “Teach me, O Lord” (verse 33). We need light from God’s word because we often face darkness — which leads to our second theme.

Dependence

Returning to the hiking analogy, dependence is when you are hours into your hike and you’re weary and hurting and wondering if you’re going the right way. This second trail through the Grand Psalm entails trusting God through trials. We move from the prayer of devotion, “Teach me,” to the desperate plea, “Help me!”

The psalmist identifies himself as “a sojourner on the earth” (verse 19), and he regularly expresses his neediness, confusion, and trouble. This believer is severely afflicted. He weeps, lies awake at night, cries for help, and longs for salvation. Think of King David on the run from his father-in-law Saul or his son Absalom. Think of David’s greater Son, Jesus, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He was mocked, betrayed, abandoned, accused, tortured, and killed.

The psalmist hits rock bottom in verses 81–87. This embattled believer feels like “wineskin in the smoke” — spent, burned out, shriveled up, cast aside. Think of Job sitting in the ashes, scraping his sores, or Jeremiah at the bottom of a muddy cistern. The poet cries out, “How long? Help!” He can’t see a way out. He is almost done — yet he clings to God’s promise. That’s how light pushes through the darkness, turning desperation into confident joy: “Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens” (verse 89).

Even after this hopeful turn to confidence, the trail of dependence in affliction winds through the Grand Psalm until its surprising conclusion: “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments” (verse 176). Elsewhere, the believer insists that he does not stray from God’s precepts (verse 110). Yet here, as he addresses the holy God, he is mindful of his own sin. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it!” This is the prayer of one who is poor in spirit and who has tasted the grace of God. The psalmist seeks God with his whole heart (verses 2, 10), but he also needs the divine Shepherd to seek him.

Delight

Our last trail through the Grand Psalm is delight. Ten times, the poet expresses his gladness in God’s word, as in verse 14: “In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.” The emphasis on delight recalls the happy man of Psalm 1, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2). Our psalmist sings because of the supreme value of God’s word, which is more precious than gold or silver (verses 72, 127). Indeed, the Scriptures are a savory feast for the soul: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (verse 103).

Remember that these euphoric expressions spring from the pen of the same poet who has endured days of distress, sleepless nights, and countless afflictions. He thought his life was over. He felt used up and worn out. God met him in the darkness, sustained him in the valley, and brought him to a place of abundance. So, he rests and revels in God’s faithful word. He treasures his God in and through trials, expressing the biblical reality that believers are often “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Devotion says, “Teach me!” Dependence cries, “Help me!” Delight says, “Thrill me!” This third trail through Psalm 119 reveals the aim of our devotion to God and dependence on his promises. Why does a hiker set off with eager expectation and keep going even when he’s tired, hot, and hurting all over? Because he knows that the trail leads to a spectacular waterfall where he can gaze upon glory and plunge into refreshing pools. As Augustine famously prayed, “You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You” (Confessions, 1.1.1).

The Grand Psalm holds out for us a fresh vision of the God who has graciously given us his excellent word, the God who sustains and satisfies his weary saints. So take and read the Book of God with devotion, dependence, and delight.

Jesus Calls Us Toward Need 29.1.2025 04:00

What kind of life does Jesus call us to live? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper unpacks Hebrews 13:12–14 to show how Christ’s sacrifice calls us to embrace need over comfort.

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Love Your Brothers in Christ: A Guide for Single Women 28.1.2025 04:00

I remember the first time someone flirted with me.

I was fourteen or so, out with a male-female group for the first time. I was rather loudly telling a story to my sister when a teenage boy suddenly put up his pointer finger. “Shhh,” he said. “You’re too pretty to talk.” Insulting, but to a young teen girl, oddly flattering. It was memorable — the first time my whole brain was flooded with the addictive substance that is the male gaze.

I wish I could say that I soon grew and matured into sobriety, leaving the cheap thrill behind in my journey to adulthood. But I went to college when I was sixteen years old; my fleshly appetite for attention only grew as it was fed. And when I became a Christian in my early twenties, the old habits of interaction with the opposite sex died hard.

For a time, the only thing I knew to do was to avoid single men. If I ever encountered one who seemed “legit” — a respectable, hardworking, marriageable man with a job and a commitment to the church — I would be very rude to him. I suppose I didn’t want to seem eager. You may wonder how I could maintain such widespread impoliteness, but it was easy. There was only one single man in our church at that time.

Reader, I married him.

I’m actually serious about that last part. God was very kind to arrange a marriage between myself and the awkward young pastoral intern at my church. A dozen years later, I am often overwhelmed with gratitude at the Lord’s kindness in protecting me from worse than the muck I waded through in my early life, largely shielding me from greater consequences of my foolishness about men. I have to admit that part of the means God used to protect me was to marry me off to a godly man early in my sanctification journey. It was better to marry than to burn.

Restraint, Modesty, Dignity, Respect

We have three daughters and one son now. As so many parents can tell you, much of my advice for my children about relating to the opposite sex begins with “Don’t do what I did.” But in advising my daughters and other single gals on how to relate to single men, four major principles come to mind.

1. Show restraint in your daydreams.

I wasted so many moments (from my young teens onward) thinking about romance. I understand that this is normal — young girls dreaming of weddings, meet-cutes, that one brown-haired boy in the youth group. But oh, if only I could prevent the total takeover of the daydream from stealing my daughters’ productivity in their single years!

I strongly recommend disciplining your daydreams. If you can’t control the rabbit trails of fancy when you are young, if you let your brain wander down any pleasurable road, you leave yourself soft, undisciplined, and open to sin. Like a young man given over to lust and pornography, a young woman lounging on rom-com pillows and serially indulging in crushes leaves herself unwilling and unable to fight the good fight of godliness with contentment. Although her daydreams may not be inherently impure and defiling to the imagination, she is pacifying herself with fantasy instead of choosing to strengthen her spiritual, mental, and emotional muscles for life in the real world.

The daydream is a kind of drug, even if a very mild one. It renders you less sensitive to the pleasures of knowing God himself (Psalm 16:11). And, like any neutral appetite for something innocent (such as food, screens, or sleep), it can either be mastered and made to serve God and health and all good things, or it can be allowed to take over a life and rule it.

2. Show modesty in your behavior.

Loud, boisterous joking that makes you the life of the party often feels fun. Dressing and speaking in a way that attracts attention can be gratifying. Making pointed eye contact with a stranger may boost the ego. But these are cheap thrills. This kind of pleasure distracts you from developing your skills in ordinary relational work, such as resolving conflict, listening, and interceding for others in prayer.

The other reason this pleasure is cheap is that it steals value from your reputation. I’m not saying you should kill your personality in order to adopt another arbitrary one. Some of us are jolly people. Some of us are quiet and contemplative. There is room for the virtue of modesty within the range of God-given personalities. But your personality needs to give way to wisdom, not the other way around. All personalities must be strained through the sieve of Scripture.

While modest behavior can be hard to define, you can imagine behavior that would give you pause if you saw it in a mature Christian lady: A woman who is constantly drawn to the young men in a group, laughing and talking loudly. A woman who always finds a way to give a topic a flirtatious edge or to bring a conversation back around to herself. A woman who gossips about others who are not present. A woman who is open to a lot of casual texting, calling, or online interaction with any man who reaches out. A woman who dresses in a way that is sexually suggestive or demands attention.

Her reputation may not appear damaged in the moment, but over time these kinds of behaviors will damage her reputation among people of sense. A Christian man pursuing a godly life with a godly wife will log this information in his head. He knows the difference between this kind of woman and “women [who] adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control . . . with what is proper for women who profess godliness — with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9–10).

Proverbs warns that charm is deceitful and beauty is vain (Proverbs 31:30). There is clearly a type of feminine charm that is lovely, deep, slow, and lasting. There is another kind that is loud, self-indulgent, and short-lived. A farsighted woman understands that although practicing modesty around single men may feel like it slows down the momentum of “attracting a mate,” it is a far better way.

3. Show dignity in communicating expectations.

As one made in the image of God, you already have dignity as a woman (Genesis 1:27). When you operate from this awareness, you will not allow your time and attention to be commandeered by any young man who wanders into your life.

For many single women, fear of remaining single is very real. But don’t let a desperate desire to be married drive you to put up with immature behavior, lazy pursuit, or even sexual advances from men. And if you accept the premise that you’re in a race against time (or worse, against other women) to get a man, you may yourself behave in unseemly ways in order to stand out from the crowd.

So while a woman’s dignity is God-given, it can be obscured by immature behavior and treatment. And it can be cultivated in small acts of self-control and relational practice. When you behave in ways that demonstrate your imago-Dei dignity — fighting your fleshly passions, taking initiative in love and service, expecting respectful and dignified treatment from men you know — you make a statement about God’s intentions in creating you.

It’s true that a woman derives a lot of her sense of dignity through her close relationships: Our parents love us, and we absorb dignity from this. Our girlfriends have character, and we absorb dignity from this. Our husbands are godly and faithful to us, and we absorb dignity from this. There’s no question that the heart-cry of a woman is to love and be loved, and that outside of this knowledge, her sense of dignity is hard to generate from scratch.

Here I would just urge a single woman, particularly one separated from her family, to focus on intimacy with her heavenly Father and then to throw herself into the circles of her church. Offer to cook for families, at their home or yours. Host friends. Push through conflict, confess sin to others, meet with older women in the Lord, and faithfully attend church meetings. I know it’s hard. I know that there is a loneliness that can be felt in the bones. But a woman’s dignity can be carried and strengthened through single years, and God has much to teach you if you will lean into obedience while being honest with him about the pain.

Ask God to be the ballast that allows you to interact with single men in a way that shows you are not “up for anything.” Communicate clearly with your body language, frequency and depth of communication, and explicit responses that your time is not up for grabs. You are available for a certain general friendliness with all the men and women in the church, but you will not dive into frequent or intimate contact without a clear purpose.

4. Show respect to all men.

When you are in conversation with a man, whether he is married or single, there are many ways you can demonstrate respect without making yourself available to him emotionally or physically. If you have a brother, you can imagine the kinds of voices, faces, and words that make him feel demeaned and disrespected, along with those that make him feel honored and esteemed: Asking for his opinion and listening to the answer. Laughing kindly at a joke instead of rolling your eyes. Waiting on him to make a decision in a small matter, which gives him a chance to practice something along the lines of leadership. Any man you encounter is someone to whom you can demonstrate a kind of respect.

Every man you see can be loved as an image-bearer of God your Father and, for believing men, Christ your brother. You want each of these men to thrive and mature. Though you are not responsible to them in the same ways you would be to your own father, brother, husband, or son, you can see all men as father-types or brother-types in the Lord, and you can be a warm sounding board to each man-in-process that you meet. A dignified woman knows how to show gentle and warm respect to all men, and should God call you to marriage, this will make it all the easier for you to show special respect, love, and submission to your particular husband.

Now, Then, and Forever

Imagine yourself in the new heavens and new earth — unmarried, a woman but somehow not built for procreation, living in your body without curse or stain of sin — and imagine the many brothers and sisters you will be interacting with there. In all likelihood, this kind of honoring relationship between men and women will continue into eternity.

And through the practices of restraint, modesty, dignity, and respect, a single woman in the church can seek to love single men well right now, as she anticipates that final day. Her single years can be a sweet aroma in the Lord’s nostrils, an offering that demonstrates faith in her Maker who is also her Husband (Isaiah 54:8). She will be preparing well for earthly marriage, should God call her to it. More significantly, she will be preparing well for the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 16:9), the heaven where men and women are no longer given in marriage to each other (Matthew 22:30) but are presented together “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27) for eternal intimacy and fellowship with Christ.

Learning to Care for Your Widowed Mom: 1 Timothy 5:3–8, Part 2 28.1.2025 04:00

Paul had no notion of godliness without fruit. Real godliness shows itself in the overflow of good works, especially to the neediest.

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If God Pastors Me, Why Do I Need Pastors? 27.1.2025 04:00

God could have designed the world so that all the help we need comes from him directly. Instead, he often ministers to us indirectly through other people. Why?

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The Lord Is Our Helper 27.1.2025 04:00

How do we overcome fear as Christians? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper unpacks Hebrews 13:5–6 to show how trusting God’s promise to never forsake us frees us to live boldly.

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Astonished by Prayer: Poetry to Combat Prayerlessness 26.1.2025 04:00

Few writers have managed to capture both the weight and wonder of prayer. The most beautiful attempt I know of comes in a sonnet written by George Herbert (1593–1633). Before we plunge into this poem together, I’d love for you to let Herbert’s masterpiece wash over you whole:

Prayer (I)

Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age,
     God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
     The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;

Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
     Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
     A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
     Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
     Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.

Double-Edged Wonder

I memorized this sonnet five years ago. For half a decade now, these 27 images have been part of my mental furniture, in my soul’s blood. My awareness of prayer will always bear Herbert’s 97-word fingerprint. Still, whenever I return to this poem, I am pulled in two directions.

First, I am moved to wonder whether I’ve ever really prayed before. Have I ever tasted the crumbs from the banquet Herbert lays out? Have I ever been within a mile of this throne room? If this is prayer, have I ever prayed?

Second, I am moved to wonder — full stop. Herbert brings me up short, drops my jaw, makes me marvel. Whatever this something is that he understood, I want in! With his wealth of images and endlessly suggestive phrases, Herbert calls my imagination to wake up to prayer as life with God.

Then, this double-edged wonder moves me to do one thing: pray. If, perhaps, I’ve never really prayed before, and if this thing called prayer is so massive and so mystical and so (dare I say) magical, what sane person could do anything other than dive in headfirst with “Our Father” on his lips? Herbert cracks open the wardrobe door and bids me enter reality — to abandon the fantasy world where prayer is some small private duty I owe to God and step into the real world, the world where prayer is, well, “Prayer (I).”

Recovering Prayer

Friend, do you feel that tension between despairing at your own feeble prayers and staring wide-eyed at Herbert’s portrait? If so, I encourage you to sit there. Soak it in. I imagine Herbert himself felt that tension as he wrote and read his poem. After all, he was no spiritual romantic. He knew despair and delight; he knew how to wrestle with God and how to wait on him. He knew the feeling of praying in an empty room. But he also knew what the Bible says about prayer. He knew feelings do not determine reality. And he knew that the effort to say beautifully is a means of seeing beauty.

So, “Prayer (I)” — for both Herbert and us — is a means of recovering, reenchanting, remembering what prayer is; and then, properly astonished, we will pray. If we lay hold of even the outskirts of Herbert’s vision, prayerlessness becomes almost unimaginable.

In the remainder of this article, I want to help kindle your wonder by meditating on a handful of Herbert’s images. The aim here is more playful meditation than definitive exposition. Like admirers in an art gallery, let’s stand before a few images, invite them to lead us, and surrender our own prayer lives to their scrutiny.

‘Angels’ age’

Let’s begin with perhaps Herbert’s oddest phrase: “Angels’ age.” In this poem, Herbert plunders the inarticulate by way of deep imagination, and the limits of language are pressed in this very first line.

So, what is Herbert getting at with “Angels’ age”? To begin, prayer is as ancient as angels. Traditionally, the heavenly hosts were considered the first created, rational beings that could communicate with God and, thus, the first to pray (Job 38:4–7). Herbert sounds the unfathomably ancient depths of prayer. Its roots reach back to the dawn of time — to the age of the angels. When we pray, we participate in an activity nigh on as old as creation itself.

But that leads to what is probably Herbert’s main point: personal prayer always participates in something cosmic. Prayer is never an isolated event. The relentless adoration of the celestial ones resonates at the very foundations of the cosmos (Isaiah 6:3–4). The world has hummed with their song-laden praise since God set the doors of the sea (Job 38:4–7). Centuries of chubby cherubs and kitsch art have blighted our imagination when it comes to the heavenly host. Herbert is not so impoverished. For him, prayer is a cosmic affair.

When we pray, we enter into a polyphonic chorus millennia in the making. And we also stride onto a spiritual battlefield. In Revelation 8, John sees an angel mediating the prayers of the saints to God and then hurling them to earth. The result is what one writer calls apocalyptic pyrotechnics — “peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake” (Revelation 8:5). Here is Herbert’s “reversed thunder”! It’s no wonder Paul closes his manifesto on spiritual warfare with prayer (Ephesians 6:18).

Yet more wonderful, prayer participates in cosmic celebration. It is not lost on Herbert that we “have come [now, in this moment] to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering” (Hebrews 12:22). This angelic party anticipates the wedding feast to come. Prayer joins in that. It is a foretaste, a forefeast, if you will. It is the “Church’s banquet.”

‘Engine against th’ Almighty’

As his lines march on, Herbert does not temper the arresting strangeness of his images but sharpens them until we are left reeling before “Engine against th’ Almighty.” Now Herbert presents prayer as an engine of warfare, a siege weapon, lofting amens against God himself. At best, this is an audacious image; at worst — well, I’m tempted to ask, “Herbert, how dare you?”

We know prayer is a weapon against the foes of God, but a weapon against God himself? That we cringe away from. But not Herbert; his blood ran too bibline for that. He listened to Abraham barter with his Maker (Genesis 18:22–33). He watched Moses issue an ultimatum to the Lord and live (Exodus 33:12–16). He heard Jacob’s bones crack as he wrestled with God and prevailed. The battle cry of engine-prayer is, “I will not let you go until you bless me!” (Genesis 32:22–32), and the artillery launched on high are the promises of the Most High.

If your snap reaction to this line is like mine, perhaps it says more about our small view of prayer than Herbert’s boldness. Surely, he is right who said, “It is the heart that is not sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in his presence.” And Herbert would add, “And shies to besiege him.” Yet those found in Christ approach the throne as boldly as the Son himself (Hebrews 4:14–16). And the Son’s boldness, at times, took the form of struggle, of blood and tears, of — might we say — holy violence. Not violence as in physical force or assault, but violence as “vehemence or intensity of emotion, behavior, or language; extreme fervor; passion” (per the Oxford English Dictionary). Nothing less captures Gethsemane.

Herbert, at least, saw prayer thus, and he was not alone. Subdued as always, Charles Spurgeon says, “Blessed be God if this holy violence is in your spirit: you shall take heaven by force yet; you shall take it by storm, and carry the gates of heaven by the battery of your prayers.” And Herbert’s mentor, John Donne, preached, “Prayer has the nature of violence; in the public prayers of the congregation, we besiege God . . . and we take God prisoner, and bring God to our conditions, and God is glad to be straitened by us in that siege.”

Donne’s final line introduces an all-important clarification. No “engine against th’ Almighty” has the slightest chance of success unless the Almighty wills it so. Frodo might as well besiege the Black Gates. No one blackmails God. You cannot strong-arm the One whose arm is omnipotent. No “sinner’s tow’r” can scale heaven unless God allows it. But God wills to be won, and prayer is the engine of that enterprise.

‘The land of spices’

We’ve seen images of cosmic scale and holy war, but what on earth might Herbert mean by “the land of spices”? At the end of this journey, where does Herbert lead us? “The land of spices” conjures the enchanted realm of Eden. Lest we forget, Eden was a garden, a garden that delighted the soul with God and the senses with arboreal pleasures (Genesis 2:9). After all, spice can mean “a spicy fragrance” (OED), the signature scent of gardens (Song of Solomon 4:16). As the garden, Eden would have been awash with lovely aromas.

Prayer is redolent of the high country where God walks with man in the cool of the day. It recalls God near man once — the greatest pleasure of the garden — by relishing God in man now and anticipating God with man forever (Revelation 21:3). Lovely aromas indeed!

Yet Herbert, as always, packs more into this line. In his day, “the land of spices” referred to the Far East, the almost mythic origin of spices. In the fifteenth century, staggering amounts of wealth came to Europe from the Indo-Asian spice trade. Cinnamon, pepper, ginger, aloe, cloves, tamarind, amber, mace, and coconut far exceeded their weight in gold. “Land of spices” smells of exotic wealth and mysterious treasure. As Dennis Lennon writes, it is an image of “trafficking in the inexhaustible resources of Christ” (Turning the Diamond, 110).

Here again, by the very richness of Herbert’s imagery, we are confronted with the poverty of our own prayer. What wonders do we surrender, what riches abandon, what joys jettison when we walk not in the garden of prayer? Why settle for mud pies? Why trade paradise for a wasteland? Why do I insist on being a spiritual pauper, threadbare and penniless, when unsearchable “riches in glory” are freely on offer (Philippians 4:19) — and not just the riches that God gives but the riches that are God? Herbert would not have it so. He is too hedonistic for that.

Holy Intoxication

It should be obvious by now that, for Herbert, prayer is a strange and wonderful thing that leaves no inch of reality unaltered. For Herbert, “Prayer is the total response of the whole person to God within the full range of lived experience” (Turning the Diamond, 20). In other words, prayer is shorthand for enjoying God.

Thus, we should not miss the hedonistic impulse that pulses at the center of this poem. Prayer opens access to “joy, and love, and bliss.” Along this path, we pursue “gladness of the best” — happiness that cannot be extended or improved (Psalm 16:11). Even when Herbert employs violent or aggressive images, the tone is pervasively jovial. And how could it be otherwise? Prayer is the doorway to Trinitarian fullness. Herbert would have loved how Tim Keller summarizes prayer:

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are adoring one another, giving glorifying love to one another, and delighting in one another. . . . God is, therefore, infinitely, profoundly happy, filled with perfect joy — not some abstract tranquility but the fierce happiness of dynamic loving relationships. . . . Prayer is our way of entering into the happiness of God himself. (Prayer, 67–68)

Herbert felt this. He had feasted at this table, tasted this “exalted manna.” He dressed himself in this gladness, perfumed with this aroma. And offering us this potent brew of images, Herbert invites us into this same holy intoxication.

Saint, how shall we then not pray?

Supernatural Pastors: How to Minister in God’s Strength 25.1.2025 04:00

Brothers, if we are going to do good — lasting good — to our churches, then we must preach and lead and counsel and serve in the strength that God supplies.

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