I’ve been tagged YET AGAIN for another meme, but since the tagger is a real hottie, all is forgiven. The rules for this one’s actually a little more interesting than usual:

• Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more.
• Find Page 123.
• Find the first 5 sentences.
• Post the next 3 sentences.
• Tag 5 people.

The book turned out to be a collection of poems from one of my favorite English writers, William Blake. The poem that ran through page 123 is titled Auguries of Innocence, and after locating the first five sentences, the last three sentences also happened to be the last few verses of the poem:

Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.

We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro’ the Eye
Which was Born in a Night, to perish in a Night,
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.

God Appears, & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night,
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of Day.

This reminds me of Job’s response to God after the conclusion of his awful trials:

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. - Job 42:5

Blake reminds me that it’s one thing to acknowledge God and recognize His divinity, but it’s quite another to experience who He is as a Person. Unless we see “thro’ the eye,” God is merely something we hear about and read about, but not Someone who is truly real to us. As righteous as Job was, his trials served a purpose in that it made him recognize his own helplessness in the face of life’s brutal storms. Yet it is in that period of despair that God’s power is revealed for us to see, and His glory is manifested in our weaknesses. When we witness God succeeding on our behalf where we would otherwise miserably fail, that’s when we begin to truly see Him.

This is the LORD’S doing; it [is] marvellous in our eyes. - Psalms 118:23

As for tagging, I won’t bother with that, but feel free to continue this meme on your blog if you want.