digging for diamonds

I still remember one summer as a kid when my parents took my brother and me to Murfreesboro, Arkansas to dig for diamonds at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. I remember being filled with wild anticipation of the great treasures I was supposedly going to find there. The park has a “finders keepers” policy so anything you find, regardless of its value, is yours to keep. I was so sure I was going to find a nice size diamond and in my young mind I was going to find it fairly easily. I also remember a bit of disappointment when I got to the diamond mine and discovered that digging was hard work, not to mention that it was hot (and of course humid). I left the mine frustrated because I had not found anything at all and in sum, was quite disappointed with the whole experience.

To a certain degree, I had a similar experience this weekend as I began to dig into Henry Scougal’s great work, The Life of God in the Soul of Man, which each small group at my church is reading through this summer. This little book was instrumental in George Whitefield’s conversion, and Whitefield in turn played a significant role in the Great Awakening here in Colonial America in the first half of the 18th century. And like I did when digging at the Crater of Diamond State Park, I dove in with wild anticipation of finding the great treasures that reportedly lay there; however, about halfway through Part I of Scougal’s little book on Saturday, I walked away in frustration—the digging was challenging and I wasn't finding as much treasure as I had anticipated.

Praise be to God this is where the similarities between these two experiences end! After much pleading with the Lord for grace to allow me to see Truth from this little book, He did. Sunday’s study of Scougal’s work (and I’ll admit it, I did have to read it twice through to completely grasp Scougal’s full intent) proved to unearth more diamonds that I could ever imagine possible or could ever expound upon in a single blog post!! Scougal does an amazing job of defining what true religion is, namely “a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the Divine nature, the very image of God drawn up on the soul, or in the apostle’s phrase, ‘it is Christ formed with us.’” and in short, the “Divine life.” Scougal goes on to set the stage for the remainder of his work by describing what this Divine life consists of and how it was so perfectly exemplified in Christ.

While the digging was a challenge initially, it got easier or maybe I finally embraced the challenge. At any rate, finding the ‘diamonds’ Scougal has in his little book has proven to be supremely valuable to my soul and indeed worth every ounce of effort. I am ultimately grateful the Lord graciously allowed a clearer vision into seeing what Scougal means by the ‘Divine Life’ and what it truly encompasses. I must say that this book is quickly climbing the list of my “Best Reads.” So, I look forward, with wild anticipation, to the great treasure that awaits as I dig into the remainder of The Life of God in the Soul of Man. And as I dig, I pray, as Scougal did for his readers, “that the holy life of the blessed Jesus may be always in my thoughts, and before mine eyes, till I receive a deep sense and impression of those excellent graces that shined so eminently in him; and let me never cease in my endeavors, till that new and divine nature prevail in my soul, and Christ be formed within me.”