Concluding that they’re not going to be able to extricate religion from the patient’s life anytime soon, Screwtape decides to adopt a new strategy. By encouraging him to accept a different vision of Jesus, and by wedding the his faith to politics, they’re going to turn the patient into a Pharisee!
My wife and I are trying to finish reading through the Bible in a year. At the moment, our Old Testament reading is coming from Isaiah and it put me in mind of this song from my youth by Daniel Bedingfield:
Can you see The honest questions in my heart this hour? I’m opening like a flower to the rain And do you know The silent sorrows of a Never ending journey through the pain
Do you see a brighter day for me? Another day? A day? Do you wonder what’s in store for me? The cure for me? The way?
Oh look down and see the tears I’ve cried The lives I’ve lived The deaths I’ve died But you died them too And all for me And you say:
“I will pour my water down Upon a thirsty barren land And streams will flow from the dust of Your bruised and broken soul You will grow like the grass Upon the the fertile plains of Asia By the streams of living water You will grow You will grow”
Do you know My story from the start? And do you know me Like you’ve always told me?
Do you see The whispers in my heart against your kindness My eternal blindness Do you see?
My faith came alive around the time this song came out and I remember that, as I listened to the album, when I came to this song, something seemed very familiar:
I will pour my water down
Upon a thirsty barren land
And streams will flow from the dust of
Your bruised and broken soul
You will grow like the grass
Upon the the fertile plains of Asia
By the streams of living water
You will grow
You will grow”
Daniel Bedingfield, Honest Questions (Chorus)
…and it finally clicked:
For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring. They shall spring up like grass amid waters, like willows by flowing streams
Isaiah 44:3-4
…which is itself alluded to by Jesus in John’s Gospel:
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. 38 He who believes in me, as[a] the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
In the Gospels, we read about a time when Jesus and His Apostles were in a boat on the water and a storm hit:
One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a storm of wind came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even wind and water, and they obey him?”