‘We are being asked to be faithful to the truth revealed by the awakened heart.’ Photo: by Cathal Mac an Bheatha on Unsplash
Heart of the possible: David Brown is awakened
‘This awakening changed their lives, leading them into spiritual adventure.’
The experience of the divine is sometimes described as an awakening of the heart. Within Quaker history, one of the most touching descriptions of this is by Isaac Pennington, who says: ‘At last, after all my distresses, wanderings and sore travails, I met with some writings of this people called Quakers, which I cast a slight eye upon and disdained, as falling very short of that wisdom, light, life and power, which I had been longing for and searching after… After a long time, I was invited to hear one of them (as I had been often, they in tender love pitying me and feeling my want of that which they possessed)… When I came, I felt the presence and power of the Most High among them, and words of truth from the Spirit of truth reaching to my heart and conscience, opening my state as in the presence of the Lord’ (Quaker faith & practice 19.14).
George Fox described his own awakening of the heart similarly, saying, ‘I heard a voice which said, “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition” and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory; for all are concluded under sin, and shut up in unbelief as I had been, that Jesus Christ might have the pre-eminence who enlightens, and gives grace, and faith, and power’ (Quaker faith & practice 19.02).
In the case of George Fox, this awakening of the heart changed his life, leading him into a life of spiritual adventure. It gave him the desire to create a spiritual movement, with the ambition of creating God’s kingdom on earth. This fervour is also expressed by George Fox in a statement made from Launceston prison, which includes this exhortation: ‘Let all nations hear the word by sound or writing. Spare no place, spare not tongue nor pen, but be obedient to the Lord God and go through the world and be valiant for the Truth upon earth; tread and trample all that is contrary under… Keep in the wisdom of God that spreads over all the earth, the wisdom of the creation, that is pure. Live in it; that is the word of the Lord God to you all, do not abuse it; and keep down and low; and take heed of false joys that will change’ (Quaker faith & practice 19.32).
We are being asked to be faithful to the truth revealed by the awakened heart, to be guided by that truth and not to be distracted from it. In another part of that passage he tells us that by so doing, we ‘will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.’ Now that’s a promise worth exploring.
