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Friends United Meeting |
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November 2000
A People Led To Testify
By Phil Gulley
Elton Trueblood warned against what he called a cut-flower mentality. We cut flowers off from their roots, arrange them in a vase and marvel at their beauty, then are dismayed to notice the flowers fade and wither. Just so, Trueblood said, there are those in our Society who sever themselves from our Root, our Life-source, and are dismayed when our once vibrant, powerful faith shrivels to nothing.
We are a people led. But if we sever ourselves from the One who is our Life-source, we will be a footnote in history's pages. We will be spoken of in the past tense. People will speak of our once-passionate faith, our once-powerful convictions, our once-vital movement. We have become in many ways that which Fox warned against--a people committed not to truth, but to forms. Vital Quakerism is not about what we were. It is not about what God used to do through us.
Vital Quakerism is about what we are and can become. It is about what God wants to do through us now. It is about intimacy with God's Holy Spirit this day, not yesterday. About holy obedience today.
If there is One who leads, are we willing to follow? Not just halfway, but all the way. Can we disown ourselves? Are we willing to lay aside our tidy plans so God might draw a bold, fresh plan for our lives? Oh, how we chafe at holy obedience, believing holy obedience will constrain us, believing it will bind us. All the while forgetting the exquisite joy of holy obedience, the serenity in placing one's self unswervingly and fully in God's wise and gracious hands, and being used for God's high purposes. How God longs to remake the world through us. How God longs to bring peace through us, and justice, and reconciliation, and healing for our broken world.
We have a testimony. We have something to say, a Truth to tell. It is a truth much finer, much higher, than the world's truth. We are a people led to testify--led to testify that God is transforming us and transforming our world.
"Lord, make me new." This is the prayer God loves to answer. It is the prayer God always answers. It is the prayer we likely all have prayed. It was the prayer of our spiritual ancestors. It was said of the early Quakers, "They were changed people themselves before they went out changing others."
(Excerpts from Keynote Address, FWCC Annual Meeting, 2000)
Copyright (c) 2000 Friends United Meeting
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