Union With God

Jeanne Guyon stirs in me a longing for what she experienced, a close, intimate relationship with the Savior every Christian must desire. "Nearer My God to Thee", that is where she lived. I live there too, but she is closer, and I envy with Godly envy.

This is the third book from The Seedsowers covering the subject of the deeper spiritual life. Guyon speaks of the joys and pains of an unrelenquished pursuit of the Lord. The joys include - being freed from outward distractions to gaze constantly at our Saviour. The pains comprise - the unavoidable denial of self, worked by His dispensing the cross in our lives. As she says: "The cross you encounter is not a cross which you will choose, but a cross which you receive by His sovereignty over your life." In other words, not a self-inflicted cross, which would lead us to pride, but a submission under the cross He's destined for us. True, there is much in this book which can be difficult to grasp. Therefore I recommend to lay a foundation with the first two books in this series (Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ and Practicing His Presence). I personally read the first two books about six times in total, and each time my hunger for a more qualitative experience with Jesus was awaken. This third book cannot be digested as it could be without the foretaste presented in these two books. It would simply be too hard to understand. As the first two books were, so is "Union with God". Without exaggerating, I would easily assign the word "breathtaking" to my description of this book.

This book is so challenging to anyone wanting a deeper relationship with God. She challenges us to fully abandon ourselves to God, intellect and all, and love God for His sake alone, not what we will get from Him. This book is one of many things in my relationship with God that are helping to truly transform my view of God and self.

This book to me has offered a lot of freedom to blindly follow God and not have to follow Him with my intellect - through intellectual study, prayer requests, going to church, etc. Those things are excellent and I do them. But where my heart really goes is intuitively and blindly and recklessly abandoning myself to His guidance. Guyon validates those of us who end up feeling like we are going backwards when really God is taking us truly forward in leaps and bounds. God's ways are certainly not ours and Guyon does a fabulous job of helping us understand His heart.

For those of you who desire a oneness with Jesus, this is a must-read. There are "prerequisites". First is that you should be totally in love with Him. Next is desire a total amalgamation with Him. Finally, you must be ready to die to self. Jeanne says, this takes time, but that you should be ready to wait on Him to accomplish this task