Holy Ground
FEBRUARY 10, 2015
“Pilgrims often journey to the ends of the earth in search of holy ground, only to find that they have never walked on anything else.” -Scott Russell Sanders
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
–T S Eliot
“But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”
–William Wordsworth
“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”
–Saint Augustine
Children seem to know they are on the holy ground. Perhaps because they are closer to the ground, literally. Is it something about their smallness, their inability, their need to trust for all they are given? Is that what makes them truly humble? By which I mean, not that they think less of themselves but think of themselves less. They see rightly. They have a right sized view of themselves in relation to the miraculous wonder-filled holy world in which we have been set down.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
G K Chesterton
The more childlike we become, the more like God we are.
And really, it shouldn’t surprise us that God is “younger” than we are. After all, it wasn’t a general or a warrior or a politician God sent to rescue his broken world.
It was a baby.
Sally Lloyd-Jones is the bestselling author of Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing, a children’s devotional, which won the Christian Book of The Year award in adult inspiration. She is also the author of The Jesus Storybook Bible, which is now available in a format for all ages with a new design and title: The Story of God’s Love for You. This article was originally published on Sally’s blog. © All rights reserved.