A Quietism Which is Dynamism

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. In his devotional book titled In Christ he shows how abiding in Christ transmits power:

"We . . . have one business in life and only one business: to live inside the love of Christ, in union with Him.

"'Isn't this quietism?' someone objects. Yes it is, but a quietism which is dynamism. It is the same quietism which a plug has when it fits into a socket and remains there receptive and passive. That receptivity and that passivity transmits a mighty activity--the power of electricity. It is the same quietism of the great dams in the region of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The water of these rivers was free to run to the sea before they were dammed up, made to be still. The power of that stillness was harnessed to lifting the level of life for the whole of this section and turned it from a backward, paralyzed mountain section into the fastest growing section of America. The quietism turned into a quickening.

"Inside Christ you transmit effortlessly; outside Christ you tear around in a fierce activity and wear out yourself and others around you. You may even become a 'big wheel,' but a wheel nevertheless which goes around in circles and gets nowhere, except into exhaustion. The quietism in Christ is the same kind of quietism which is at the center of a cyclone--a place of rest, but the place where the power of the cyclone resides. Paul put it thus: 'But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.' (1 Cor. 15:10.) You live in His grace, you live by His grace, you work by His grace, you are fruitful by His grace, you are everything in His grace.

". . . the true and only way to live [is] to live in [Christ] and in nothing but [Christ]. Here [we are] at home. Here is [our] native land. Here is [our] life. Here is [our] energy. [We] live with [His] life, love with [His] love, and work with [His] energy.

". . . [Our hearts] are the center of creation, for the Creator is there creating."