Seeing Through to God Alone

TEACH me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,
To run into action ;
But still to make Thee prepossest,
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy.

All may of Thee partake ;
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine :
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold ;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

-- "The Elixir" (George Herbert, The Temple)

Francois Fenelon's wise words about seeing God alone through all circumstances are recorded in a booklet called Spiritual Letters. They remind us--as George Herbert had written before him--to look through all things and to see God alone:

"Be not anxious about the future; it is opposed to grace. When God sends you consolation, regard Him only in it, enjoy it day by day as the Israelites received their manna, and do not endeavor to lay it up in store. There are two peculiarities of pure faith; it sees God alone under all the imperfect envelopes which conceal Him, and it holds the soul incessantly in suspense. We are kept continually in the air, without being suffered to touch a foot to solid ground. The comfort of the present instant will be wholly inappropriate to the next; we must let God act with the most perfect freedom, in whatever belongs to Him, and think only of being faithful in all that depends on ourselves. This momentary dependence, this darkness and this peace of the soul, under the utter uncertainty of the future, is a true martyrdom, which takes place silently and without any stir. It is death by a slow fire; and the end comes so imperceptibly and interiorly, that it is often almost as much hidden from the sufferer himself, as from those who are unacquainted with his state. When God removes His gifts from you, He knows how and when to replace them, either by others or by Himself. He can raise up children from the very stones.

"Eat then your daily bread without thought for the morrow; 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' (Matt. 6:34) Tomorrow will take thought for the things of itself. He who feeds you today, is the same to whom you will look for food tomorrow; manna shall fall again from Heaven in the midst of the desert, before the children of God shall want any good thing."

Norman Grubb also testifies to his own experience of seeing-through to God alone in his book, Yes, I Am:

"I began to be a 'see-through-er' to Him rather than a 'see-at-er,' in all that is in His universe, whether man or matter, whether evil or good. And I began to find the poise, calmness, hope and faith there is in such single-seeing."