We can do any number of good things, and make any amount of effort aspiring to those things, but this cannot bring us close to God (make us presentable before Him). When that happens it is essentially you working – you may not have rest (i.e. be satisfied), but you can have all ‘the rest’ of God’s gifts (beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure).

You can work hard for anything, be it a decent paycheck, good grades, quitting a bad habit, living a good life, or even prominence in ministry. If you think of rest, you only rest after finishing a piece of work, and you only finish a piece of work when you are satisfied with it. What is the “Rest” that in the bottom lay? Satisfaction. The more you pull towards yourself on one side, the further it goes on the other only let go and… Let him be rich and weary, that at least,įirst let me add a good diagram I found: Pulley System Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,Īnd rest in Nature, not the God of Nature īut keep them with repining restlessness. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure. Let the world’s riches, which disperséd lie, “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. Well, I hope you find this analysis useful to your understanding, but it’s quite a personal take on the poem.

With the traffic this post gets, I’ve started to wonder whether readership is from the high school and university academic community trying to write their essays / exams on George Herbert.

The pulley by george herbert