Section 16
life!"—then the God who hides Himself is pos itively at work in your life. Sometimes when you are out on the street or in your room, thoughts such as these come to you—"What is the purpose of my life? What is the Lord getting out of it?"— and it does not dawn upon you that that is the Lord at work within you. Let me tell you: Those faint registrations in the depths of your being, those slight suggestions you thought were wholly your own because they were so natural—those were the Lord's doing. The God who hides Him self is at work within your life, but He has hidden Himself so effectively that you have been quite unconscious of His activity. And He is working outwardly as well as inwardly—in your home, in your business, in all your circumstances. He is creating many situations and is active in many directions, though He lets you sense nothing of it, until you imagine these things have just come about naturally; but both the inner and outer conditions of your life are under His control.
The very fact that the church has continued on this earth for nearly two thousand years is the result of the working of Him who is a God who hides Himself. It is often true that the greater the display accompanying any work, the less the divine content; and the more silent
the work and the less our awareness of it, the greater the divine content. Since all the work we do is done unto Him who hides Himself, it must be based on faith, not on sight.
I trust these words will help some of us to realize that when we are most conscious of im potence, God is often most powerfully present. Don't look for greater things. Don't look for things other than they are. Don't set your expec tation on some great vision or on some great experience. And don't expect anything outward, for the God who hides Himself is at work within your life, and He is working mightily. Your re sponsibility is to cooperate with Him by respond ing to His voice within—that "still small voice," that voice that seems so much a part of your own feelings that you scarcely recognize it as a voice at all. To that voice, registered in the deepest depths of your being, you must say, "Amen," for there, secretly and ceaselessly, the God who hides Himself is working.
© 1992 Living Stream Ministry
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