Being Led Not Driven

What brings about the change in our lives? Is it that self-determined attitude of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps? A friend of mine when he saw a popular Christian book in Costco was taken aback by the title. He hadn't seen the book before that moment. It didn't take him long to summarize his feelings. He concluded two things. First, he decided he didn't want to be driven. Drivenness is how we describe the unhealthy business person, the high achiever. He said, "I don't want to be driven, I want to be led." Secondly he determined that purposes were too impersonal and a false representation of God - God is more than a purpose. He said, "I don't want to be led by purposes but by a person."

In Silas Marner, the object of Silas's gaze is shifted from his gold hoard to a little girl he adopts named Eppie. He retreats from his aloofness to the town and its people. He is reshaped by what holds his gaze. Here is how George Eliot describes the change.

“Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie: she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was, from which, for fifteen years he had stood aloof as from a strange thing, wherewith he could have no communion: as some man who has a precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil, thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money.
In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be that of a little child’s.”

This is the theme of Christmas and the rest of our story. We are not intended to be driven people...and particularly we are not driven by purposes. We are to be led in this life, taken by the hand and shown the way. God is not interested in accomplishments, they are false gods. God is interested in relationship with us. Just as we are without excuse.

Comments

[fishrock]

you're baaaaaack!