All I Know

I was awakened early this morning with a verse from the Horatio Spafford hymn, "It Is Well with My Soul," rolling in my mind. It was the following:

"My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!"

As I prepare to invest next week writing at Mepkin Abbey, a local monastery, I find it interesting that my waking thought was here. Martin Luther, though not the writer of this hymn, was a monk who wrestled so intensely with the blight of sin upon his soul. Then the light of God's grace illumined his darkness and set him free! He will be on my mind much over these days.

Interestingly, my last thoughts before bed last night were upon God's emotional gyrations displayed throughout the Old Testament; Hosea 11:6-9, for example. God the merciful-lover who wanted to destroy, but was compelled otherwise.

Somehow it all merges for me where the apostle Paul found himself speaking to the Corinthians: "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (I Corinthians 2:2). Paul did not want to obscure the power of God with human wisdom. What Christ had accomplished was enough.

This morning, with bliss!, that's all I know.