Aging beautifully.

Your invitation to Fusion.

When the 24/7 prayer movement ‘accidentally’ began Pete Grieg wrote The Vision on one of the walls in that first prayer room. Now, some 5 or so years later, he wrote the following in his book ‘The Vision and the Vow’:

George McDonald, the nineteenth century Scottish mystic who inspired JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, compares the Christian vision to a beautiful portrait painted by God, depicting the person we will one day become:

‘Tis but a vision’ I do not mean
That thus I am, or have one moment been –
‘Tis but a picture hung upon my wall
To measure dull contentment therewithal,
And know behind the human how I fall;
A vision true, of what one day shall be
When Thou hast had they very will with me.

To those who accuse ‘The Vision’ of being idealistic, I can think of no better response than George McDonald’s poem. I would be a liar if I pretended that light currently “flickers from every secret motive” in my heart. “Sulphuric tears” scorch my prayer life less than I would like. Sometimes – more often than I want you to know – I fly on autopilot, praying as if it all depends merely on me, yet living lazily as if it all depends on God. George McDonald was right. You hold in your hand little more than a dream, “a picture hung upon my wall” measuring my own “dull contentment,” and yet it is also a “vision true” anticipating “what one day shall be.”
People tend to have portraits painted or photographed when they are in their prime, as a flattering reminder of the fading beauty that was. But the passing years are not cruel for us in Christ. Quite the reverse! The Word of God assures us our features “gradually become brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him” (2 Cor 3:18 Msg).