January 7

Read: Romans 12:1-2

I plead with you therefore, brethren, by the compassion of God, to present all your Faculties to Him as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to Him — a spiritual mode of worship (Romans 12:1, Weymouth).

Life’s Divine Center

Thomas R. Kelly writes: “If the Society of Friends has anything to say, it lies in this region primarily. Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a Divine Center. Each one of us can live such a life of amazing power and peace and serenity, of integration and confidence and simplified multiplicity, on one condition — that is, if we really want to… We have all heard this holy Whisper at times. At times we have followed the Whisper, and amazing equilibrium of life, amazing effectiveness of living set in. But too many of us have heeded the Voice only at times. Only at times have we submitted to His holy guidance. We have not counted this Holy Thing within us to be the most precious thing in the world. We have not surrendered all else, to attend to it alone. Let me repeat. Most of us, I fear, have not surrendered all else, in order to attend to the Holy Within.

“John Woolman did. He resolved so to order his outward affairs as to be, at every moment, attentive to that voice. He simplified life on the basis of its relation to the Divine Center. Nothing else really counted so much as attentiveness to that Root of all living which he found within himself. And the Quaker discovery lies in just that: the welling-up whispers of divine guidance and love and presence, more precious than heaven or earth. John Woolman… found that we can be heaven-led men and women, and he surrendered himself completely, unreservedly to that blessed leading, keeping warm and close to the Center” (A Testament of Devotion).

Now rest, my long divided heart; Fixed on this blissful Center, rest; Nor ever from my Lord depart, With Him of ev’ry good possessed.

— Philip Doddridge