“God to Earth … God to Earth … Come In, Please”

“The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.” [Ps. 50:1-2, Bible Lesson 1]

“In 1898, when work had accumulated to such an extent that I [Judge Hanna] wrote Mrs. Eddy for permission to resign some of my places, she asked me to adopt a method of relief by taking certain hours each day for self work, during which I was not to be interrupted by anyone for any purpose. She said that had she not adopted such a course, she never could have accomplished her work.” Excerpts from Judge Hanna’s memoirs

What is so significant here is that Mrs. Eddy did not advise Judge Hanna at all concerning his least action, but rather called him to contemplation, inferring that seeking God first, seeking Him more, was the chief clue to solving the mystery of accomplishing so many important, needful things efficiently. While he was so concerned about not having enough hours in the day to accomplish all of his God-given assignments, she called him to give up even more of those precious working hours to the God who worketh the works. She called him to go up higher. In surrendering more of his work schedule to the seemingly more “counter-productive” task of centering himself more in God — while concentrating less on doing God’s work — the work would more than take care of itself, as so supremely evidenced in her own life.

After Handel received the libretto to “The Messiah,” made up entirely of sacred scripture, he was inspired to take no action whatsoever, but instead decided to devote his attention to God for a season. As it turns out, Handel sat for 3 days in an altered state of consciousness, without eating or drinking. He appeared to be so completely inactive that his servant, steeped in sense, became extremely concerned, thinking him dead, but thanks to a wise physician, no one touched him. Later, Handel testified that during those 3 days he had been taken to heaven, “absent from the body, present with the Lord” in a state of continual Christ-consciousness. After that experience, he wrote the massive score of “The Messiah” in just 21 days. He never charged a penny for any of the performances, insisting that the work was not his: that he was only the secretary of heaven’s musical dictation.

God is continually calling me to surrender more and more of that which is earthly of me that it might be placed under the rule of heaven. Therefore, whenever I am tempted to feel overwhelmed with the work that heaven has assigned me to perform, may God help me to interrupt myself: to consecrate every moment, every breath, “from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof,” to the task of surrendering — giving up possession of — a little more of the earthly kingdom of self-expressing selfhood, that every surrendered portion may be in God’s possession and thus translated into Christ-expressing selfhood. And may God also grant me the grace never to surrender the least particle of that now heaven-possessed portion back into the possession of the kingdom of self-expressing selfhood, that the kingdom of God may fill all in all.