Monday, March 9, 2009

My Own Canoe - Elisabeth Elliot

Title: My Own Canoe
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Devotion: Elisabeth Elliot
Book: A Lamp For My Feet
___________________________________________________

"The rule of the universe," wrote C.S. Lewis to his friend Arthur Greeves, is "that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and one can paddle every canoe except one's own" (They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, p. 514).

This is grace--God graciously doing for us what we cannot do and so constructing human life that we are allowed to help--i.e., to give life to others. In our pride we try to save ourselves, but it is impossible. We can only lose by trying. It is when we stop straining to paddle our own canoe and let Another paddle it for us, or give ourselves to paddle someone else's ("bearing his burdens") that we fulfill the law of Christ.
The wind carries the seed, the bee the pollen, the mother the child. So life is borne and born.

No comments: