LIGHT AND DESIRE
LIGHT AND DESIRE
It is a great comfort that failure in the thing which you most desire is no proof that you do not truly and genuinely desire it, and that there is in you the nature that desires it.
[p. 278] The failure is caused by the flesh — the evil will refusing to let you be personally the exponent of what in heart you desire, and you will find that though for the moment your acts deny your desire, yet that your desires do not go with your acts, but condemn them. I make a distinction between light and desire. Light is the reception of any truth; but desire is more the heart set on maintaining it. Now circumstances test both. With the former, there is no power against a deliberate assault. You act in nature, and your excuse is that no other way was open to you. The other is, you are victorious when the attack is open and palpable, but you often lose ground when you least expect it; you are, as we say, ‘taken unawares’. No open or deliberate attack could subdue Samson, his heart was right. Lot gave way before the first great attraction. The failure contrary to your desire only shows that you have not been drilled enough, you are not broken enough, and therefore the breakdown occurs in order to show you where your weak point is, and the truer your desire, the more will you watch and guard against it. It is the readiness of your body (of which the tongue is the index) to bow to the divine desire, which proves, like a horse well-mouthed, that you are under complete control. If it be only light that you have received, and there is a departure from it, the conscience even may not be troubled if there be a good excuse for the departure. When there is a real love of the truth, one is always pained if one’s acts do not declare plainly the ruling desire of the heart. In the former case, temptations are allowed to occur in order to expose to oneself how little really the love of the truth possesses one. In the other, to show one where the danger lies.
It is a wondrous and beautiful thing to see our bodies made to be accompaniments to the divine nature as a harp to the voice. Sanctified in spirit, soul and body.