Have you ever had a time in your life that you would call “a crisis”? Some in this room might be in a time of crisis right now. I suspect that most of us — if we’ve lived long enough — can look back on some moment in our lives, some time, some season (if not many!) that we would identify as a crisis.

We might say that it felt like the very ground beneath our feet was shaking. We might describe it as our world being turned upside down. We reach for catastrophic language, as Psalm 46:2–3 does, to put words and concrete images to the tumult in our own souls.

It could be a national crisis. That can indeed whip up our anxieties. It may have been a national crisis that inspired Psalm 46. But a national crisis in the modern world — playing out far away, in the news and on our screens — can be a far cry from a personal crisis.

Psalm 46 was composed in a time of crisis, and it is preserved for us today for our crises. This psalm gives us a crisis-ready vision of God. The particular crisis that gave rise to these verses is left unidentified. This may not satisfy our curiosities, but it does show us the timelessness of our God. These words were not written for only one crisis, but many. And they are ready-made for our crises today.

Confident in Crisis

Psalm 46 casts the crisis in two life-or-death threats. The first and perhaps original threat is hostile nations, threatening Jerusalem. Verse 6 says that “the nations rage, the kingdoms totter,” and then in verse 9 we hear of war, bows, spears, and war chariots (or perhaps carts for making siegeworks against the city).

The second threat is nature. The earth and mountains, typically images of stability, are shifting. Verses 2–3 mention how “the earth gives way,” “the mountains [are] moved into the heart of the sea [and] its waters roar and foam,” and “the mountains tremble at [the sea’s] swelling.” The stable, secure earth and mountains are being overtaken by the restless, raging, unstable, dangerous sea. It’s a picture of natural cataclysm, perhaps even of end-times catastrophe.

“If God’s people can be without panic when the ground shifts, and the seas rage, and the nations rage, then we can face any crisis with confidence.”

And into this particular chaos, this crisis, these life-or-death threats to the city of Jerusalem, Psalm 46:2 says, amazingly, “We will not fear.” That’s how God means to help us with this psalm — to displace fear with confidence, to give us stable ground under our feet even in crisis. If God’s people can be without panic when the ground shifts, and the seas rage, and the nations rage, then we can face any crisis with confidence.

God of All Help

Whatever trouble comes, Psalm 46 tells us, with its first word, where to turn. Not to a change in circumstances. Not to our best efforts to fix the problem. Not to our anxious strategies to avoid pain and loss. But rather, to God.

God is our refuge and strength,     a very present help in trouble. (Psalm 46:1)

The entire psalm rings with the name of God. Verse 4: “the city of God.” Verse 5: “God is in her midst.” Verse 5: “God will help.” Verses 7 and 11: “the God of Jacob.” His covenant name, “the Lord,” appears in verses 7, 8, and 11. And then there’s the all-important verse 10: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

That’s where we’re headed: Stop raging and scurrying and plotting. Cease your frantic efforts. Be still, and bow to God. But don’t just bow; know. Know him. Know for the first time, or learn afresh, that he is God, and that as Jacob had him as his covenant God, so do we, and all the more, in Christ.

If God can handle the world’s ultimate undoing, and the nations raging against his own chosen people, he can handle your crisis. He can help in your trouble, however catastrophic it seems. This psalm will always be ready, because our God is always ready — which leads to what specifically this psalm tells us about our God. The power in this psalm is in its vision of God. It gives us God, so that we might not fear, but have real peace of soul in crisis by knowing him. Three main pillars uphold this vision of God in Psalm 46.

1. He Is Infinitely Strong

One of the overwhelming effects of Psalm 46 — perhaps the chief effect of the psalm — is that it communicates to our souls: “Your God is strong, with infinite strength.” Some call this a “psalm of confidence.” By rehearsing God’s strength, his people displace their fears, based on lies, with confidence in him, based on remembering who he is.

Which is why Martin Luther loved this psalm, and took this psalm as the inspiration for his great “battle hymn” of the Reformation, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” In the face of proverbial raging seas, and literal raging enemies outside the gates, God’s people have Strength himself on our side, however quick we can be to forget that.

If you were to try depict God’s infinite strength and power to a weary soul, how would you do it? It’s one thing to say “God is strong”; it’s another to show it, to make it concrete and tangible. How do you quantify divine strength? How do you provide glimpses of infinite power? I see at least four here.

The first two are verse 1: “God is our refuge and strength.” That is, he both protects and empowers his people. “Refuge” is defensive, a place of protection and safety. Like Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, a refuge is a place to flee to for protection when an enemy is approaching. “Strength,” then, is God’s providing his people with the inner power to keep going. Energy and hope to keep breathing, keep walking, keep fighting. So “refuge and strength,” are outward and inward, defensive and offensive, the first two depictions of God’s strength, to help his people.

Third, then, is the last part of verse 6: “He utters his voice, the earth melts.” God doesn’t need fire to melt the earth. He doesn’t even need hands and arms. He doesn’t need a tool or laser. He only needs his voice. He only says the word, and the earth melts. The power of our God is seen in the power of his word. All he has to do is say it and it happens. Just as he spoke the world into being, and then into order, so he can dissolve it into chaos and out of existence, simply with his voice, if he so chooses. And with his voice, with his word, he can dispel fear from the hearts of his people and give them confidence in him.

Fourth, and related, is verse 9: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.” In other words, God defeats the enemies of his people. No matter how fierce and strong and weaponized and terrible the army, when he’s ready, he says, “Enough!” And in the end, even as he now endures war and evil with patience, war will cease. There will be a full and enduring final peace. God, in his infinite strength, will see to it — and do it with his word.

So, the first pillar that upholds this crisis-ready vision of God is his strength.

2. He Is Attentively Present.

That is amazing, given his strength. That is amazing if you’re on his side, if he’s your God. And it is horrifying if you’re against him. Which is the second part of verse 1:

God is our refuge and strength,     a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

He is not only strong, with infinite strength, but he’s present to help in trouble. And not just present, but “very present,” attentively present. In other words, he is ready and eager to help. He is not only able to help when he chooses; he is eager to help. And he’s near, he’s present, he’s accessible.

Verses 4–5 expand for us what it means that God is “a very present help”:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,     the holy habitation of the Most High.God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;     God will help her when morning dawns. (Psalm 46:4–5)

The river in verse 4 is not the first mention of water in Psalm 46. What was the other water? The sea — the restless, raging, unstable, dangerous sea. The sea is threatening water. But now we have very different water: a river. That is, water that is predictable and life-giving. Water that keeps a city alive when cut off from the outside by the siege of a foreign army. This river, in the city of God, while it’s in crisis, is so precious that it doesn’t just keep the city alive, it “makes [the people] glad.” Even in the midst of crisis, there is gladness. There is joy, even in pain and threat. Because this life-giving river, who is God himself, is present with his people to sustain them in their crisis. Our God, as our refuge and strength, doesn’t only get us through crisis, but even gives us joy in crisis.

“God’s help does not mean that his people are kept from crisis, but that he keeps us through crisis.”

But this river and city raises an important question: where? This is a particular city which God makes glad with the water of life and the river of his presence. This is not any city. It’s Zion, the city of Jerusalem, the place God chose to be “in the midst of her,” so that “she shall not be moved” (Psalm 46:1), which is significant for us reading Psalm 46 as Christians. No longer is there a particular physical place where God has pledged his special favor and presence. Now, there is a particular person, God’s own Son.

Christians do not rally to a particular city; we rally to a particular person for refuge, strength, and very present help in trouble. And we do so together — to form a people. Which means the church is a critical context for finding joy in crisis. And this place, where God chooses to be present, in all his strength — once in ancient Jerusalem, and now in Jesus Christ, and his body — verse 5 says “shall not be moved.” Verse 2 spoke of mountains being moved into the sea. Verse 6 speaks of kingdoms tottering, that is, literally, being moved. Nature is moved, nations are moved, and verse 5 says God’s people, then in his chosen city, and now in his beloved Son, by faith, “shall not be moved” (Psalm 46:5).

Which doesn’t mean that God’s people never enter into any trouble. This psalm, with all its confidence in the strength and nearness and eagerness of God, never promises that we will be spared crisis. In fact, it assumes crisis. It readies us for crisis. And in the crisis, it promises God’s help, but not on our timetable. Verse 5: “God will help her when morning dawns.”

When Morning Dawns

In Exodus 14, as God’s people seek to escape from slavery in Egypt, with their backs against the Red Sea, and the Egyptians bearing down on them with “six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt” (Exodus 14:7), the people panic. This is a crisis indeed, with no walled city, and no river of fresh water. And into this crisis, Moses, prompted by God, speaks these words his people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today” (Exodus 14:13). Then he lifts his staff, the sea parts, and God’s people walk through on dry land. The Egyptians follow, and so, at God’s command,

Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. (Exodus 14:27)

“For every crisis we face in Christ, and all its darkness, God has a dawn designed.”

For every crisis we face in Christ, and all its darkness, God has a dawn designed. He will help when morning dawns. Your dawn will come. God’s help does not mean that his people are kept from crisis, but that he keeps us through crisis. In his perfect timing, when the appointed morning dawns, he rescues his people from their trouble, having preserved them through the long night.

Which leads to a third and final pillar of this passage.

3. He Will Be Exalted.

Which might be surprising. If God’s infinitely strong, and attentively present and ready to help, isn’t that enough? What does God’s being exalted have to do with the help we need in crisis? Why, at the very height of Psalm 46, in verse 10, the climactic verse — the famous “be still and know” verse —why does God say here, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”? How does God’s own declaration that he himself will be exalted feed our confidence?

To answer that, let’s get verse 10 in context. Verse 8 issues an invitation to the raging nations, those setting themselves up as enemies against God and his people. It’s almost a taunt, and also an invitation to any among God’s people who might be fearful:

Come, behold the works of the Lord,      how he has brought desolations on the earth. (Psalm 46:8)

Remember, all God has to do is say the word. As we saw in verse 9, when he chooses, in his perfect timing, he makes wars cease, breaks bows, shatters shields, burns chariots and siege works with fire. In other words, it is a lost cause to set yourself against the living God.

Verse 10, then, issues another word of invitation, again both to raging nations and God’s fearful people. And this is the climactic statement of the psalm. Raging nations, fearful people, “Be still, and know that *I am God.”

Did you catch that change of voice? The first invitation, verse 8, is from the psalmist: “Come, behold the works of the Lord.” But now, in verse 10, God himself speaks. He issues the invitation. He utters his voice, to the raging nations and tottering kingdoms — and oh, do we still know tottering kingdoms and raging nations!

And he speaks into the chaos, into the raging and tottering, “Be still.” Lay down your weapons. Cease your warring and deconstruction. Cease your rage and disorder. Be still, which is first a rebuke to the raging nations, to our turbulent world.

Happy to Be Human

However, it is also a word to God’s people, who hear him say it to their foes, and read it in their Bibles. Be still, church. You need not be anxious. You need not fear. You don’t need to go into a frenzy to help yourself and save your family and take your country back to the 1950s. Be still, and look to me. Rest from all your horizontal diversions and distractions and discouragement, and look up. Be still, and in that stillness, own that you are not God, and can be happy about it. You are not infinitely strong. You are not attentively present. You dare not be self-exalting. But know that I am God.

And then follows the two great declarations from the mouth of God himself, of his own certain exaltation. As surely as he is God, “I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10).

Fortress Never Failing

For God’s covenant people in Israel back then, and for his covenant people today in Christ, our God’s exaltation is our salvation. His exaltation is our refuge and strength — and very present help in trouble. The surety of his exaltation is precious beyond words and gives us a place to stand when all around us seems unsure. The certainty that he will exalted is granite under our feet. It is the guarantee of our help. It is our fortress.

Psalm 46 ends with a powerful word. The word “fortress” in verse 7, and in the refrain in verse 11, the final word on which the psalm ends is an even stronger image of security than “refuge” in verse 1. This “fortress” is a picture of inaccessible height. Helm’s Deep is a refuge. Heaven in a fortress. Not just a strong bulwark but one never failing.

The refrain is beautiful in verse 7, but it comes with added force in verse 11, on the heels of God’s promise that he will be exalted. Not only is he infinitely strong, and attentively present, but he will be exalted. As surely as he is God, he will be exalted. And for his people, we have in this God, and his exaltation, an impenetrable fortress, come what may.

Stillness at the Table

As we come to the Table, we remember that Psalm 46 is not the last time the voice of the Lord uttered, “Be still.” God himself, in human flesh, slept in the middle of a raging storm. His disciples panicked. This seemed to be a life-or-death crisis. And when they woke him, Jesus was not frantic but spoke stillness into the crisis: “Peace. Be still.” And so, the calm of his own spirit settled over the raging sea: “the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).

In Jesus Christ, we know the God of Psalm 46. And in him come together the saving strength and presence and exaltation of the one to whom we turn in crisis, and who speaks, “Peace, be still” into the raging storm of our soul.

It all happened so slowly, so silently. Each step seemed so small, and even so reasonable in the moment. You didn’t pack up and run like the prodigal son. But somehow, when you look back, you find yourself farther from God than you thought you were.

Maybe you overheard someone praying with simple, childlike love for Jesus, and you can’t even remember the last time you prayed like that. Maybe months have passed since you have woken up and wanted, really wanted, to read your Bible. Maybe corporate worship has become a mere habit, a hollow sound, a form of words without wonder. Maybe you just committed some sin, or entertained some thought, you couldn’t have imagined a year ago.

Maybe you know exactly how you got here: a subtle worldly compromise, a Christless relationship, a slow but deep neglect, a secret sin unconfessed. Or maybe you struggle to trace the path you walked from there to here. You just know that you are not where you once were.

And now, perhaps, like that son in the far country, you think of your Father. You remember home. You wonder if you could find your way back.

‘He Restores My Soul’

At one time or another, all of us in Christ find ourselves in need of returning to Christ. Maybe we’ve wandered from him only for a few days or a week, or maybe we’ve allowed months or more to pass. Either way, our feet have strayed; our love has waned; our zeal has cooled; our eyes have dimmed. We love Jesus less today than we did yesterday. We need renewal.

Yes, but how? What road will lead us back to our Father’s house, back to the land of our first love? We might begin by remembering a line from David’s most famous psalm:

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. (Psalm 23:1–3)

Our Lord Jesus specializes not only in saving the lost, but in restoring the saved. He calls himself shepherd, the good shepherd, and as such he does not rest easy while one of his dear sheep wanders from his fold. And therefore, however far we feel from Jesus, and however unable to see the paths back to him, he knows how to restore our souls. He can bear us on his shoulders and bring us home.

And when he does, he often carries us along four restoring paths.

1. Remember

Remember . . . from where you have fallen. (Revelation 2:5)

Personal revival often begins when we remember how far we have fallen, just how far we have wandered. And by remember, I mean really remember. Ponder the past. Relive former, more spiritually alive times in your life. Feel the sorrow of first love lost.

Do you remember the way you once treasured God’s word in your heart like so much gold and silver? Do you remember how prayer felt sweet as honey on your tongue? Do you remember how you hurried to arrive at corporate worship lest you should miss some song, some part of the sermon? Do you remember telling others about Jesus not from guilt but from the natural overflow of your joy? Do you remember how you once fasted with freedom; gave your time and money with a happy, open hand; killed your sin with radical resolve; and heard the name of Jesus as the most wonderful sound in all the world?

“Our Lord Jesus specializes not only in saving the lost, but in restoring the saved.”

We may feel tempted to run from such remembrance, to pretend all is well for fear of facing how much we’ve lost. But don’t run, and don’t pretend. If there is sorrow here, Jesus has promised to sweeten it. Painful remembrance is often our first step toward home. And if we humble ourselves under the comparison of us then and us now, God pledges to make us the special objects of his reviving love:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

The only spirits God revives are lowly spirits; the only hearts he restores are contrite hearts. And so often, the fruits of lowliness and contrition grow from the soil of honest, unflinching memory.

2. Return

Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful. (Jeremiah 3:12)

There is, no doubt, a sick kind of remembrance, a kind that leaves us more lost than we were before. Some, forgetting God’s mercy, remember themselves right into a pit of despair. They recall home from the far country, but they don’t dare to hope that their Father is waiting for them, ready for them, scanning the horizon with ring and robe in hand. And indeed, we would have no reason to hope unless God himself told us not only to remember, but to return — unless he said, again and again to his lost children, “Come home.” But he does.

Note how God speaks to his wandering people in Jeremiah 3:12. They have not yet done anything to reform themselves. They are, in his eyes, “faithless Israel,” their faithlessness having driven them far from him. But he will not allow their faithlessness to become a reason for staying far from him. “I will not look on you in anger,” he says, wooing, “for I am merciful.” However far we’ve wandered, we find in God a mercy far deeper than our faithlessness.

He gives only one condition for his welcome: “Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God” (Jeremiah 3:13). Only confess. Only repent. Only own your sins without excuse and receive the blood of Jesus. And then believe that whatever faithlessness has led you far from God, he still says gladly through Jesus, “Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord; for I am your master; I will take you” (Jeremiah 3:14).

3. Remove

Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. (Isaiah 1:16)

True remembrance plus faithful return does something deep in a soul. As with the godly grief the apostle Paul describes, we feel a renewed “indignation . . . fear . . . longing . . . zeal” (2 Corinthians 7:11). Freshly forgiven in Christ, and now no longer wandering, we rise like men and women newly alive, ready to remove whatever we have allowed to take us from God.

Revival brings a kind of holy violence to those it touches. In the Old Testament, we read of revived kings like Josiah taking hammer and torch to the idols throughout Israel (2 Kings 23:4–20). In the New Testament, we read of a more spiritual, but no less real, violence. The saints of Christ still know how to handle hammer and torch, toppling and burning idols of heart and life that have stood all too long.

We should beware at this point of a common danger that threatens the Spirit’s restoring work. Even as we labor to remove idols — habits and hobbies, entertainments and relationships, websites and apps — we can nevertheless fall short of removing all. Like the Israelites who left some enemies in the land, or like the kings who allowed the high places to stand, we can rest satisfied with half-reformations, quasi-revivals, near-renewals.

In all likelihood, such partial measures will only leave us in need of revival again, and probably sooner than we think. Don’t hesitate, then, to smash and burn your once-loved foes. Every swing of the hammer clears more space for Christ. Every piece of scorched ground becomes a garden where the Spirit’s fruit can grow.

4. Restore

Do the works you did at first. (Revelation 2:5)

Ultimately, the work of soul restoration belongs to God. “He restores my soul,” not I. But as he restores us, he also grants us to play a part in the restoration process. Just as King Josiah not only cleared the land of idols but also reinstated the Passover, so we not only remove sins but also restore those holy habits we have long neglected. We “do the works [we] did at first” (Revelation 2:5).

Such restoration has been God’s purpose from the beginnings of his dealings with us. Every painful removal was meant to make way for something better. When God brings personal revival, he inevitably brings with it a closer, holier walk with him, a fellowship with him on his “paths of righteousness” (Psalm 23:3). And oh, how great is our joy!

Then the Bible becomes hallowed ground again. Then the door of our prayer closet becomes a doorway to heaven again. Then sermons become feasts again, and evangelism becomes a privilege again, and offenses become overlookable again, and God’s people become again “the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3). Then we see that our God is not only the God who saves, but the God who restores — who delights to restore, who restores beyond all that we could ask or imagine.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Perhaps you’ve encountered this famous line penned by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins aimed all of his poetry at helping people see that we live in a world drenched in divine delights — a world that everywhere reveals the glory of God. That is a wonderful reality, but for the child of God, the wonder goes even deeper.

For the Christian, the glory revealed in the world is not the glory of some generic deity; it is the goodness of our happy Father. “The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord” (Psalm 33:5 NASB). And so, the pleasures we experience in the world are paternal pleasures. The beauty of the world is our Father’s smile in stuff. And, wonder of wonders, our Father delights in our delight in his gifts. Like a happy dad on Christmas morning, the Father of lights lavishes on us all things richly to enjoy so that we might be happy in the Giver of all good things (James 1:17). Who then could resist reveling in the pleasures of God?

We do — daily! Like fussy children, aren’t we often too greedy or self-focused or distracted to enjoy our Father in his gifts? Consider yourself for a moment. Did you enjoy the sunrise this morning? I’m not just asking if you saw it. No, did you marvel as the sun vaulted the horizon? Did you delight in the fanfare of light and color? Or maybe you’re not the “outdoors type.” In that case, did you find pleasure in a cup of coffee? Or the comfort of a good pair of socks? Or the smile of your child? Did you really attend to any of our Father’s gifts?

As you can see, there is a reason C.S. Lewis called enjoying God the difficult discipline of hedonism. Joy is hard work, but eternally worthwhile. In Letters to Malcolm, Lewis writes, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito” (101). And pleasures are his footprints, reminding us that he is here. “Pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibilities” (121).

So, if Lewis is right, if we can nowhere evade the presence of God, then how do we so often — consciously or unconsciously — evade the pleasures of God? How are we so easily distracted from enjoying our Father’s gifts? Lewis gives three reasons well worth pondering.

Greed

Lewis starts with low-hanging fruit: greed. Why? Because greed corrupts the pleasures of God by seizing them in degrees, times, or manners outside of God’s design. We are all prone to wander into those wonderless sins.

Greed is a scaly beast. It stashes and hoards and sleeps on treasure. Greed is always hungry, always demanding more. Lewis calls this the demand of Encore. That fatal word encore knows no boundaries. It recognizes no proper times or rhythms. It always overeats. It loves to say “just one more.”

Unfortunately, almost all of our consumer society aims to allow us to demand encore in a voice that cannot be gainsaid. And the dragon fusses — and fusses loudly — if the demand is denied. Yet Lewis doubts that God ever fulfills this desire for encore. “How should the Infinite repeat Himself? All space and time are too little for Him to utter Himself in them once” (35). Ironically, the demand for encore is too easily pleased! God wants to give more than we desire to get. How many present pleasures do we render rotten by demanding again and again what God once gave?

But greed does not always announce itself in fire and destruction. Perhaps the sneakiest form of greed comes when we use God’s gifts without enjoying them for what they are, giving no heed to what Lewis called “the quiddity” of things (Surprised by Joy, 244). When we indulge this form of greed, we force honey to school us about wisdom without ever actually tasting the honey-ness of honey (Proverbs 24:13–14). We order birds to soothe our anxiety without ever delighting in bird-ish beauty (Luke 12:24). We close the sun into the classroom of theology without ever basking in his sunny glory or his Eric-Liddell-like delight (Psalm 19:5). We should delight that things are before we seek to use them. As Chesterton once said, we must take fierce pleasure in things being themselves. Here there be pleasures the dragon never knows.

“God is eternally, graciously, stunningly generous with his pleasures.”

God is eternally, graciously, stunningly generous with his pleasures. The daily sunrise says so. And as Thomas Traherne — who was one of Lewis’s great inspirations — points out in his book Centuries, we are not yet nearly as happy as he means us to be. What an antidote to sticky fingers, the itch for encore, and the pragmatic misuse of God’s good gifts!

Self-Focus

According to Lewis, the wrong kind of attention also distracts us from the pleasures of God. He explains that this kind of attention subjectifies pleasures. It turns from the sunrise (the object) to try to see what’s happening in me (the subject).

We’ve all had the experience of turning inward to grasp a feeling only to have it slip through our fingers. I suspect this dynamic is often at the root when Christians struggle with assurance. A saint looks inward to find evidence of faith and discovers faded footprints in the sand because his gaze has left the object of faith. He has ceased to attend to Christ.

Pleasures, just like faith, are object dependent. When you stop looking at the sunrise to ask, Am I really enjoying it? you lose the whole pith and pleasure of the sunrise. Thus, self-focus, the wrong kind of attention, can gut the pleasures of God. This scoliosis of the soul can be traced right back to the garden, which led the ancients to call man homo incurvatus in se — man bent in on himself. So, how do we become unbent?

Ultimately, only the Spirit of God can rip our attention off self and rivet it on God. But Traherne provides a way to act that miracle: lose your “self” in wonder. “When you enter into [God’s world],” Traherne writes, “it is an illimited field of Variety and Beauty: where you may lose yourself in the multitude of Wonders and Delights. But it is a happy loss to lose oneself in admiration . . . and to find God in exchange for oneself, which we then do when we see Him in His gifts, and adore His glory” (9). Childlike wonder crowds out selfishness and makes room for divine pleasures to enchant us to God.

Familiarity

Finally, Lewis warns that inattention is the greatest enemy to the pleasures of God because, over time, we fail to see what we see. Like an old bungee cord, our senses become slack — our vision veiled by familiarity. What we once enjoyed with assiduous attentiveness soon fades to the background like art on a hallway wall. Traherne warns us, “The most beautiful object being always present, grows common and despised. . . . Were we to see it only once, that first appearance would amaze us. But being daily seen, we observe it not” (65). In our fallen state, the current of human sensibility ever drifts toward this negligence.

Let me try to prove this. Have you walked past a tree today? Did you see it? If you’re like me, you didn’t even notice. But what a fantastic work of the triune imagination. This star-powered wood-tower becomes a pillar of Eden in summer, a heaven-high flower in fall, a snow-robed statue in winter, and a living signpost of hope in spring. Just imagine a world without trees! Yet we observe them not.

Just here, the poets are so helpful because, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge explains, poetry aims to “give the charm of novelty to things of every day . . . by awakening the mind’s attention to the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us, an inexhaustible treasure” (Biographia Literaria, 208). Poetry — perhaps preeminently — arrests our attention and helps us savor the pleasures of God.

The Psalms do this so well. These inspired poets awaken us to men that bear fruit like trees (Psalm 1:3), to the sun that runs across the sky like a giddy bridegroom (Psalm 19:5), to the moon and sundry stars that hold court at night (Psalm 136:9), to wind heaped up in heavenly storehouses (Psalm 135:7), and, of course, to the sea, that fathomless playground of Leviathan (Psalm 104:26). In this theatre of glory, we shall never starve for want of wonders. If we had but Spirit-opened eyes, we would out-awe the angels. “The real labor,” according to Lewis, “is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake” (Letters to Malcolm, 101).

The pleasures of God are good — in the full, fat, dripping sense of the word — but they require work. Joy is indeed a difficult discipline. Greed, self-centeredness, and the relentless pull of inattention constantly creep in and cut us off from divine delights. Therefore, Traherne exhorts us, “Apply yourself vigorously to the enjoyment of [God’s world]” (63).