Love’s Knowledge | From an Old Soul

by Elouise

Can we reason or debate our way to the truth about ourselves and God? George MacDonald doesn’t think so. My comments follow.

July 27

The love of thee will set all notions right.
Right save by love no thought can be or may;
Only love’s knowledge is the primal light.
Questions keep camp along love’s shining coast—
Challenge my love and would my entrance stay;
Across the buzzing, doubting, challenging host,
I rush to thee, and cling, and cry: Thou know’st.

George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul
Augsburg Fortress Press 1994

Questions fly at MacDonald day and night. Are these internal or external voices? It doesn’t matter. They’re all versions of the same challenging question: Do you, George MacDonald, love God truly? If so, prove it! If you cannot, you won’t pass “Go!”

Instead of rushing to answer this challenging question, MacDonald appeals to an image. Love is a place where we dwell. Perhaps it’s an island off the coast of Scotland, beckoning him (and all of us) to come on over. He sees the coastline shining in the light, washed by waves lapping up onto the seacoast.

This place called love isn’t ordinary love. It’s deep knowing that is, in fact, “primal light.” Essential, living light. Not mere reflected light. Primal light illumines and can clarify our confused and confusing notions about God and our relationship with God.

Who or what is this primal light? We see it in Jesus’ true (trustworthy, complete) love for us, the perfect image of God’s love for us and all creation. It might seem nothing could be clearer.

Yet up and down the coastline, challenging forces try to stop anyone seeking entrance into this country. There are tests to take, answers to give, books to read and papers to write! Do you have the right answer?

MacDonald could take on the enemy in multiple debates, and fight to the bitter end. But it would get him nowhere.

Instead, he keeps his eyes on the goal and rushes his way “across” the challenging questions, right into the arms of The Answer! MacDonald seeks a person, not formal proofs of his love for God, or God’s love for him.

He seeks Jesus, God’s “primal light,” sent to confound and defeat challenging questions that keep us in the dark. We’re estranged from the truth we desperately long to cling to with our hearts.

This doesn’t mean our notions about God and God’s world will all be straightened out. Nor does it mean the way forward will be clear and easy. In fact, it may not always seem to make relational or rational sense. In any case, we’ll never be able to prove rationally our love for God, or God’s love for us.

Yet the truth is before us. It’s in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Sometimes it’s reflected in our lives. Jesus didn’t primarily teach and preach. Rather, he showed us the way to live in right relationships. As one of us, he lived with us 24 hours a day. He knows firsthand what it’s like to experience the best and worst of human life.

This wasn’t a magic show. It was one life lived one day at a time. Even now, Jesus remains our friend and sometimes strange master who invites us to follow him in life and in death. One step at a time, one day at a time.

In the end, what matters most isn’t whether we get all our notions sorted out. It’s that Jesus loves us and is still laying down his life on our behalf. Not on behalf of our great ideas and grand notions, or even because we love him “head to heel.” But because he, like God, loves us dearly and desires our love in return.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 December 2015