Allow the Light to Be an Active and Growing Force

“For the first Quakers, convincement was about much more than accepting new beliefs. Even a powerful experience of the Light of Christ within was only the beginning. Then they learned how to allow that Light to be an active and growing force. After turning their attention to the inward presence of Christ, early Friends were shown startling and uncomfortable truths about the nature of their society and their inner psyche. They saw that they had been conforming to deceptive and oppressive social behaviors. Painfully, they recognized that they had been under the control of subtle inward negative forces which created a separation from God. They had not been fully alive.

The Light revealed this and then changed their lives from the inside out. Early Quakers accepted to be put into the spiritual fire of purification, cooperating as God melted away inner impediments to a life of Truth and faithfulness. The person they had been before this change was called ‘the old man.’ Through the process of surrendering everything to the transforming power of the Light, the image of God within their humanity was restored. A ‘new man’ or ‘new creature’ was born, a son or daughter of God, a person willing to ‘crucify’ personal desires and pleasures, when necessary, in order to center his or her life around God and God’s loving and radical purposes. They called this process ‘regeneration.’ They were ‘translated’ (transformed) into a new kind of being. They changed their clothing, their speech, their social mannerisms, their business practices. They stopped complying with unjust social norms and laws, accepting the loss of social status and sometimes imprisonment that followed. They supported one another to be faithful and to endure persecution by forming close networks of community. Their spiritual rebirth involved a great deal more inward and outward change than is usually signified by those today who claim to be ‘born again.'”

— Marcelle Martin, 2013
“The New Birth”

Today’s Invitation

Turn your attention to the inward presence of Spirit and face what startling and uncomfortable truths you may find illuminated by the Light.