Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: August 12

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith …” ~ Hebrews 12:2a

This “purple stone” is related in a piercing way to the suffering that always follows taking the “reins of our lives” back into our own hands. In order to take them back, even for a moment, it is necessary that we jerk them from the hands of the Son of God. And to do this causes us to look away from Him quickly.

When we yield to the temptation of desire for something which we have no right as followers of the Crucified one, we seem immediately to forget Him. For the time of indulging our selfish desire, He becomes quite unreal to us. He has not gone away. “Lo, I am with you always.” But we forget His Presence in the flush of our taking. We have fallen on the way because of the wrong look

And only when we begin to try to pick ourselves up from the ground do we realize we have almost forgotten about the Lord. Only when we try to look back, do we realize how far we have looked away. He has not turned from us. We have turned from Him, and our shame and sorrow and remorse team up to cause a kind of suffering only His loved ones know. We haven’t hated Him during our time of self indulgence. We have forgotten Him. And this burns into our hearts and we cry “All my powers forsake me!” “Against thee, and thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” How can I get back as I was before.

“Return unto the Lord … Come unto me … look unto me and be ye saved. Let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; … he will abundantly pardon.