I am currently reading the Charles Dickens classic David Copperfield, and there is a perfectly fitting section in it that describes Copperfield’s first evening with Dora, his first true love.
Copperfield says this:
“The sun shown Dora, the birds sang Dora, the south wind blew Dora, and the wildflowers in the hedges were all Dora’s. I took Dora’s little hand and kissed it and she let me, and we all seemed to my thinking to go straight up to the seventh heaven.
“We did not come down again, we stayed up there all evening. At first we strayed to and fro among the trees. I with Dora’s shy arm drawn through mine and heaven knows, folly as it was, it would have been a happy fate to have been struck immortal with those foolish feelings and have stayed among the trees forever.”
How lovely a description of love, isn’t it? That feeling when everything you see reminds you of your love. Love that seems to lift you up to a higher level of existence and if you would but have one wish it would be to freeze that moment together.
Though this describes a romantic love, a kind altogether different from our Love of Christ, it does perhaps draw us back to the time when we first became infatuated with our savior. A time when we were so overcome with the thought of forgiveness and salvation and the pure Joy that comes from knowing we are being kept by Christ that we could wish to be stuck in that moment immortal, that His assurance and joy would never leave us.
I find myself at times, while I’m sitting on the back porch in the evening, picturing in my mind a still and quiet lake near sunset with our Lord, and I lying back against the bank watching the sky turn from gold to orange to pink. It’s quiet and still and I am there, worshiping the one who painted such beauty in the presence of that beauty himself.
Meditating on this and other scenes of joy and serenity can very nearly get us to that state of pure joy that we have all had at times and perhaps such a joy is what John had in mind when he tells us in 1 John 2: 28, “and now little Children abide in him.”
Isn’t this the Joy that we read of in Psalm 23? “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
My dear reader, remember those words when life feels overwhelming or when your walk with Christ feels inadequate. How much sweeter would our lives be if we could stay in that moment, cling to that Joy and carry it with us.
How much differently would we face temptations or walk through trials if the sun shown Christ, the birds sang Christ, the south wind blew Christ and wildflowers in the hedges were all Christ. “And now little Children, Abide in Him.”
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