April
April / 59 then, that the new and risen life, the life which is hid with Christ in God, may have free s 'scope to grow and develop. For thus and 'thus only shall you be able practically and triumphantly to be raised as Christ was raised, to live anew plifexs
Sahin ie tal Say to the people of Israel, If any man of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is afar off on a journey, he shall still keep the Passover of the Lord.
(Nm 9:10) The Passover was the memorial of the Israelites' redemption out of Egypt and was to be kept by the people, even in the wilderness. It is a type, I think, of the continual remembrance on our part of the fact that we have been redeemed, even though we may know ourselves to be wandering in wilderness places.
Neither defilement nor distance was to hinder the keeping of the Passover. But it was to be kept in the second month, instead of the first, teaching that defilement hinders or delays assurance, although it does not deprive the soul of its right to it. A child may be naughty, but it will be still a child, and no parent would be pleased to have it begin to consider itself no longer a child.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus: Christ from the dead. (1 Pt 1:3)
— Nothing could be more plainly stated. Our spiritual life is born through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore it has its source in him and derives its nature from him. I am convinced very few of us realize this as a fact. Why else do we struggle so hard to give birth to spiritual life by our own efforts?
We try by wrestlings, and agonizings, and resolutions, and religious exercises of all sorts to bring about the "new birth." No wonder religion has become such a hard and apparently hopeless task for so many. Even on the natural plane, the
60 / Daily He Leads Me creation of life is a blank impossibility, and how much more on the spiritual plane. The soul, therefore, that tries by its own self-efforts to create spiritual life in itself, is attempting an impossible task and can land itself nowhere but in despair.
6 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (Jn 3:5) John alone, of all the Evangelists, records the sayings of our
Lord, introduced by the words, "Truly, truly." (There are twentyfour of these sayings in his Gospel, and all of them develop the laws of the spiritual life.) This "Truly, truly' states the incontrovertible fact that the only way into any form of life is to be born into it. Things grow in a life, but they cannot grow into it. The doorway into any plane of life is always by birth.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). (Eph 2:4-5) The divine seed within us is being quickened by the Holy
Spirit whenever we feel inward stirrings and longings after holiness. This is the begetting of God. Then comes our responsibility. We cannot create life, but we can let life live. We can lay hold of it by an entire surrender to Christ, who is our life.
We can accept him as our life and refuse to let any other life live in us. We can reckon ourselves to be alive in him.
A man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. (Gal 2:16) This, then, is how the spiritual life is to grow; that is, by' surrender and faith. We must boycott the old self-life and must deal only with the spiritual life. But we must not make another mistake and think that although we cannot beget life by our renege neers
April / 61 selfefforts, we are to make > it_grow ourselves. We are as owerless in the matter of our growth as in the matter of our begetting. Life grows of itself. It is a mighty dynamic force that only asks a chance to grow.
Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give to you.... 1am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
(Jn 6:27, 35) Christians are continually trying to feed their spiritual life with all sorts of things other than Christ. They feed on the dry husks of dogmas and doctrines, or on forms and ceremonies, or on religious duties well performed, or on Christian work of various kinds, or on good resolutions, or on fervent emotions; and then they wonder at their starved condition. Nothing can really satisfy the hunger of the soul but Christ. To draw our life from Christ means to be so united to his nature that the same spiritual life flows through our spiritual veins that flowed through his. This subject is often regarded as mystical and difficult to understand. But there is a practical way of looking at the matter that seems to me simple and easy to understand. We feed ourselves on the writings of a great author by becoming familiar with them and by adopting their teachings as our own; and in the same way we must feed on Christ. We know what it is to become one in thought and feeling with a well-loved and honored friend and to share that friend's inmost life; similarly we must become one with Christ. We can understand how an artist can feed his mind on the life and work and teaching of some great master in art and so become like him, able to follow in that master's footsteps; and just so must we do with Christ.
"p You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. (Jn 15:16)
62 / Daily He Leads Me A living plant always bears fruit. It is the law of its life that it should do so; and it is equally a law that this fruit should come, not by effort, but by spontaneous growth.
We need not trouble ourselves about our fruit-bearing. It is "appointed" that we shall bring it forth, just as it is appointed that a fig tree shall bear figs. It is the law of our spiritual life; and we can no more have real spiritual life within us without bearing fruit than the oak tree can have life without bearing acorns. Very few seem to understand this. As a consequence, there is a vast amount of effort among Christians to hang fruit onto their branches by some outside performances of one sort or another. It is as though a man bought apples and hung them on his apple trees in order to secure a good crop of fruit! Fruit must be "brought forth," not fastened on. This is the law of fruitbearing, and to try to violate this law can only bring confusion and death.
I I Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs: No more can salt water yield fresh. (Jas 3:12)
Another one of the laws of life is that all plants must yield fruit after their own kind. I must be content, therefore, to be just the species of plant and to bear just the kind of fruit that the Divine Husbandman pleases. We do not always find that we like to be what God has made us to be. Perhaps I would like to be a rosebush and blossom out in roses, when he has made me a potato plant and wants me to yield potatoes. I might be tempted to get paper roses and sew them on. But what folly! A million paper roses could not turn my potato plant into a rosebush, and the first person who tried to pick one would find me out! All that Ineed to do is to see to it that, whatever species of plant I may be,
I become a healthy vigorous plant and fulfill the law of my being without grumbling. Be content to be what your God has made you, but do not be content until you are the best of its kind.
April / 63 I But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Cor 12:9) The law of the spiritual life is that divine strength will be made perfect in human weakness. Our part is to supply the weakness; God's part is to supply the strength. We. owever, con tinually t trying to usurp God's part and to supply the strength ourselves. Because we cannot do this, we are plunged into depths o discouragement. \ _We think that in order t to work effectively for the Lord we ought to feel strong in ourselves.
When instead we find ourse 5 feeling weak, we are in despair.
But the Bible teaches us that, if we only knew it, our weakness is in reality 01 our ur greatest t strength.
I But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Cor 4:7) perfect only in human 'weakness. For in the spiritual life the natural man never can feel strong in itself, and if we think it_ ought to, we shall be con continually troubled. However, if f we understand this law, we shall learn, like Paul, tot ake pleas ure in Our infirmities and our T weaknesses, 'because we shall see 'that only when we are weak are we really Spiritually strong.
— ~&AThe choice lies between the strength of our own human Ee and the strength of the divine nature within us. To the iny unquickened mustard seed the we ight o of earth above it cou not but seem U e an AE: Ee but, _ when those m ou Mtains of €a arch-Without any "apparent effort. Life carries all before it, and no obstacles can withstand its progress.
Even rocks are upheaved by the irresistible power of life in a tiny creeper. Tris life, 'more life that we want, not more effort. -f
64 / Daily He Leads Me I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. l 4 (Jn 10:10) Every plant has its own laws of life and can only flourish in certain localities and under certain conditions of soil and climate. This is equally true of the spiritual life. Even so, outward localities and outward climate make no difference here, although Christians often seem to think they do. We find ourselves in uncongenial surroundings and are tempted to think our spiritual life cannot flourish in such environments.
But no o outward ci circumstances can aff alice ne life of ene soul 'ment is none otherthan God and his| ioe ae you are dead, ae your life is hid with Christin God.' ' The sources of one's life, that is, the objects and aims and underlying springs of action, must be either in the self or in God. If in the self, then our life is hid in « self; if in God, then our life is hid in God; and to "dwell in God' or to "abide in Christ" mean simply that we have the underlying spring of all our thoughts, words, and actions in him.
I For God alone my soul waits in silence; / from him comes my salvation. (Ps 62:1) The whole theory of wise conduct may be summed up in the knowledge of when to act and when to refrain from action; the whole practice consists in acting according to such knowledge.
A complete mastery of both theory and p yractice is rarely attained by an individual, but that is no reason why we should
Not try to attain it. "Surely," many persons may exclaim, "it "cannot require 'much intelligence to wait."
On the contrary, it is often a very difficult thing to do nothing judiciously, or, in other words, it is often a greater trial to a man's spirit to wait than to work. How often are we placed in circumstances which no action of our own is likely to improve—in which it is clearly prudent to take no step, to do nothing, to say nothing: but to™
"Wait and see what the opposite party will do or say. Restless from temperament or some other cause, people go and do
April / 65 | something when it would be infinitely better if they had sat quietly at home and done nothing. How frequently are clever people the victims of this overactivity! All cultivated persons are aware of the importance of work, but few have considered how much wisdom there often is in waiting. Of all the lessons that humanity has to learn in life's school, the hardestis to lear to wait. o———— es I 6 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Rom 13:10) This is the most essential law of love, that characteristic which makes it inclusive of all other laws, namely, "love does no wrong to its neighbor,' knowing it to be wrong. For love to do wrong is as impossible as for the sun to give darkness instead of light, Love loves and cannot, therefore, do anything contrary to ove. Itis not that it will not or ought not, but simply and only that it cannot. It is an inevitable law.
We must remember, however, that a great deal of what is called love ought really to be spelled s-e-I-f-i-s-h-n-e-s-s. People love their own enjoyment of their friends more than they love 'the friends themselves, and consider their own welfare in their 'intercourse with those they profess to love, far more than the welfare of the so-called loved ones. It has been said that we never really love anyone until we can do without them for their good.
Bs a lives are marred and made miserable by the selfishness of some relative or friend (too often a parent), who, under the plea of love, will not allow the least liberty of action on the part of their loved ones. They will do everything possible to hinder their development in every line that is not agreeable to themselves. Surely such a course, however it may be disguised, can spring from nothing but selfishness.
I vA Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. (1 Jn 4:7-8}
66 / Daily He Leads Me God is love; therefore love is the key to the mystery of God.
He is not only loving, but he is infinitely more than that; he is love itself. The sun not only gives light, but it is light, the source, center, and very being of light itself. This is always the case, even though the fact may be hidden from our eyes by clouds or misrepresented by colored or smoked glass.
We have all used the expression "God is love" hundreds of times, no doubt; but I am afraid it has conveyed to our minds no real idea of the facts of the case.
If we would know God, we must know what love is; and then we must apply to God all the best and highest that we know of love. For God is absolutely under the law of love; that is, he is under an inevitable constraint to obey it. He alone of all the universe, because his very essence or nature is love, cannot help loving. We, alas! whose natures are not altogether composed of love, but are mixed up with a great many other things, can help loving and very often do help it. Because this is the case with ourselves, we think it must also be the case with him; and we torment ourselves with imagining that, because of our own unworthiness, he will surely fail to love us. What a useless torment it is! How little real sense there is in it!
I Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us. (Rom 5:7-8) One of the laws of love is that it loves for love's sake only and not because of anything lovable in the object. How often we have seen mothers lavishing a wealth of love upon children who did not seem to others to possess one single lovable quality. One of my children once said to me, in a fit of remorse after a spell of ( bad behavior, "Oh, mother I do not see how you can love such a ') naughty little girl as I am." And I replied, "Ah, darling, you
' cannot understand. Ido not love you for what you are, but I love you for what I am. I am your mother, and I love you because O
April / 67 (my mother-heart of love; I should love you just the same no "
) panatter what you did. I should not love your bad behavior, but I is | should love you."
4 But if you hearken attentively to his voice, and do all that I say, then! will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. (Ex 23:22)
Obedience is the logical outcome of yielding and trusting. If yield myself up into the care of a physician and trust him to cure me, I must necessarily obey his orders. If I am lost in a wilderness and surrender myself to the care of a guide, I must walk in the paths he points out. No guide can lead a lost traveler home, if that traveler refuses to follow his guidance and persists ~in walking? in paths he! forbids. If we want the Lord to care for us,
~ and protect 1 us from our enemies, and provide for our needs, it stands to reason that we must obey his voice and walk in the paths he marks out for us.
Dy Joseph said to them... "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." (Gn 50:19-20)
This is the secret of all those trials which come to us from the wrath or malice of men. They think evil against us, perhaps, but God means it for good; and we can therefore say with Joseph, of each one, "It was not you" who did it, "but God."
Knowing this, it is not strange that the Apostle should assert so triumphantly his deliverance from all fear of what man can do to him. "For He has said, I will never fail you nor forsake you.'
Hence we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper, /I will not be Sie eer an aan do tamer Eh Re The death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross was another illustration of this truth. It certainly was by wicked hands that he was crucified and slain; and yet these "wicked hands" only accomplished, all unconsciously to themselves, God's plan for the salvation of the world.
68 / Daily He Leads Me Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:
Bs, the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which! command you this day, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods which you have not known. (Dt 11:26-28)
Obedience may be said to be simply a matter of self-interest. It is not ademand made of us, but a privilege offered. Like yielding and trusting, it is simply a way of bringing divine wisdom and power to bear upon our affairs. If we could only learn to look upon it in this commonsense kind of way, we should find that it had lost half of its terrors. We should be able to say then with our Divine Master, "I delight to do your will," and not merely I consent to do it.
A great many people-consent to obey God because they are afraid of the consequences of disobedience, but they find no delight in it. If, however, they would only look for a little while on the other side crdisee comic thi ianiile Waesed he unspeakably blessed cOnseqUeNCe's of obedience, they. w uld find themselves deTipline in TeUstictice fan Fe vena cneaceN: Papel. _and rejoicing in the privilege of it.
~~~ bs:
And the kingdom and the dominion/and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven / shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; / their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, / and all dominions shall serve and obey them. (Dn 7:27) How few of the children of God have realized their true position in this universal kingdom and dominion of the Son of Man! It is our birthright to find all things made our servants, but instead we allow most things to become our masters. A trial comes, or a disappointment, and instead of recognizing it as God's servant, sent to bring us some blessing from his hand, we bow down to it as our tyrannical master and let it crush us into
April / 69 _ darkness and despair. How then should God's servants be received?
Since all things are God's servants, all things must necessarily be his messengers, and therefore every event of life has its
_ message for us. Many of our choicest gifts come to us by the hands of very rough-looking messengers and are wrapped up in coarse brown packages. My neighbor who treats me unkindly, or my friend who wrongs me, or my enemy who maligns me, have a message from God for me as truly as the pastor who preaches to me or as the Christian friend who gives me a tract.
We little know the rich blessing we lose because we despise and misuse the "servants" who bring them. Perhaps the gift of patience, for which you have prayed long and apparently in vain, is held in the hand of that very disagreeable inmate of your household, whose presence has seemed to you such an unkind infliction. Or it may be that the victory over the world, for which your soul has fervently hungered, was shut up in that very disappointment or loss, against which you have rebelled with such bitterness.
Then his [Job's] wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity Curse God, and die." But he said to her,
"You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil" In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Jb 2:9-10)
In the story of Job we have a very striking illustration of trust in God. All sorts of misfortunes came upon him, originated by all sorts of agencies. His oxen and his asses were stolen by the Sabeans; his sheep and his servants were burned up by lightning; his camels were carried away by the Chaldeans; his sons and his daughters were crushed by the collapse of the house where they were feasting; and finally Job himself was afflicted with painful boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. There were very different instruments employed in bringing these misfortunes to pass, and yet all of them—Satan, the Sabeans, the
70 / Daily He Leads Me lightning, the Chaldeans, the great wind from the wilderness, and the boils that covered Job's body—all were God's ways of accomplishing his blessed purpose of maturing the fruits. of meekness, and patience, and submission, and trust, in the heart of Job, and of bringing him into greater nearness and communion with himself at last.
Job evidently received these afflictions from the hand of God, for he took no notice in any case of the "second causes," but referred his trials right back to God. "The Lord gave," he said,
"and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord."
") Whatever the Lord pleases he does, / in heaven and on earth, / in the seas and all deeps. (Ps 135:6)
If God "pleases" to let me undergo a trial, he has in that act adopted my trial as his servant to accomplish his will in my life.
One of the greatest difficulties in the Christian life arises from the failure to see this fact. The child of God says, "It would be easy to say 'Thy will be done' to my trials, if I could only see that they come from God. But my trials and crosses come almost always from some human hand, and I cannot say 'Thy will be done' to human beings." This is all true; but what if we should see, in every human instrument only one of God's "servants," coming to us with hands full of messages and blessing from him?
Could we not then receive them with submission and even with thankfulness? The trial itself may be very hard for flesh and blood to bear, and I do not mean that we can be thankful for that,
_ but the blessing it brings is surely always cause for the deepest thankfulness. I may not be able to give thanks for an unkind friend, but I can give thanks for the patience and meekness brought to me through the instrument of this friend's unkindness.
» Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thes 5:16-18)
April / 71 No one can possibly obey this command to give thanks in everything, who fails to see that everything works to the good for those who love God. In truth, every event of life, even the most disagreeable, is only a bearer of blessing; and as a consequence, all the days of such who believe are filled with _ continual thanksgiving.
_ Perhaps some may ask why it is, if all things are indeed God's / servants sent to bring us some message or some gift, that they themselves never seem to get these gifts or messages. The » answer is simply this, that because these gifts and messages
- have come to them wrapped in coarse and ugly packages, they ) have refused to receive and open them. Their ears have been so filled with their own complainings, that they could not hear
, God's message, and their eyes have been so absorbed in looking _ at the seen suffering and hardness that they fail to look for the - unseen blessing.
~~ It makes the best sense, therefore, to welcome every event of life as God's servant, bringing us something from him; and to overlook the unattractiveness of the messenger in the joy of the message, and forget the hurt of the trial in the sweetness of the blessing it brings. wo A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I willall the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.... for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:7-10)
Paul had learned to "boast" of his weakness and to accept the fact that a "messenger of Satan" was sent to "harass him."
Nothing could possibly have a worse origin than a "messenger of Satan," and nothing would seem at first sight to be less like a tool ora servant of God; and yet Paul evidently recognized it as such, and was thankful for it, because he found that shut up in this very "thorn in the flesh" was the blessed revelation to his soul of
72 / Daily He Leads Me the power of Christ resting upon him. For the sake of a similar revelation, who would not welcome a similar thorn!
Ds WA For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Phil 2:13) Our will is a piece of splendid equipment, a sort of rudder, such as they have on sailboats to direct the course of the boat; and everything depends upon the intelligence that guides its action; whether it is guided by our ignorance or by God's wisdom. As long as our own ignorance is the guide, the boat is sure to go astray, and it is dangerous for us to say, "I will" or "I will not." But when we have surrendered our wills to God and are letting him "work in us to will and to work for his good pleasure," we are then called upon to set our faces like a flint to carry out his will and must respond with an emphatic "I will' to every
"Thou shalt" of his.
9h My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. (Jn 4:34) Your attitude towards God is as real when only the will acts,
Ast thdvhbatatep reel SUN et Ce as when €évery emotion seems to support your your choice. [tm Itmay no y not seem as real to us, but in God's sight it is as real and often, I think, all the more real, because we are unencumbered by a lot pa € naw ee is meena Tenbemealewelre sion patent emotions an 0g, siaaptppelvasletiaindisre be emnte erties is an east wind blowing. Simply see to it that your will is in God's hands; that your true inward personality is abandoned to his working: that your choice, your decision, is on his side; and leave it there. Your surging emotions, like a tossing vessel which by degrees yields to the steady pull of the anchor, will find themselves attached to the mighty power of God by the choice of your will. They must inevitably come around. It is a psychological fact, not generally known, that our will can
April / 73 control our feelings, if only we are "steadfastly minded." Many times, when my feelings have declared unmistakably that I was going in a direction contrary to the facts, I have changed those feelings by a steadfast assertion of their opposite. Similarly, I _have been able many times to control my rebellious feelings against the will of God by steadfast assertions of my choice to accept and submit to his will. Sometimes it has seemed to drain me of all the willpower I possessed to say, "Thy will be done," so contrary has it been to the evidence of my senses or my emotions. But invariably, sooner or later, the victory has come.
God has taken possession of the will thus surrendered to him and has worked in me to will and to do of his good pleasure.
') Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. ... Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. (Phil 2:4-6, 9)
Lowliness of mind is the only true road to honor. He that humbles himself shall be exalted and no one else. Our divine
Master has set us this example; and if we really want to have the "mind that was in Christ Jesus," we must be willing to be made of no reputation and must take, not the place of mastery, but the place of service.
3 0 Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. (Phil 3:1) The consummation of all Christian experience is to bring the soul to the place where it has learned how to "rejoice in the Lord"
Bado Dees eset ua one.
"Finally, my brethren," Paul says, or, in other words, "The summing up, my brethren, of all I have to say to you is simply this, rejoice in the Lord." Probably, if we had written the epistles, we would have given very different advice. We would have said, "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in
74 / Daily He Leads Me your faithfulness; or, rejoice in your wonderful experiences; or, rejoice in your hard work for the Lord; or, rejoice in your growth in grace." We would almost certainly have been rejoicing in something about ourselves. Yet any rejoicing which has self for its foundation must necessarily end in disappointment, for sooner or later self always disappoints us, no matter how good or even how pious a self it may be.
May Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for 1 am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
(Mt 11:29) To be "gentle and lowly in heart" one must get rid of the ME.
Some people think they are humble and lowly in heart when they say bitter and disparaging things about themselves, but I am convinced that the giant ME is often quite as much exalted and puffed up by self-blame as by self-praise. The simple truth is that we ought not to think or talk about our ME at all. Self is so greedy of notice that it would rather be blamed than not noticed at all. This seems strange, but I believe the reason is that self feels as if the very saying, "I am so bad," proves that it is not so very bad after all, since it can be so humble! It is, however, a very different thing to say disparaging things about ourselves than to have someone else say them about us. Think for a moment how you would feel if your friends were to agree with such remarks and were to repeat them to others as their own opinions.
Suppose the next time you said, "Oh, I am such a poor good-fornothing creature,' someone should reply, "Yes, that is exactly what I have always thought about you." How would your ME
76 / Daily He Leads Me like that? The truth is our ME always expects the disparaging remarks it makes about itself to be denied; and it often, even if unconsciously, makes them for the express purpose of having them denied, and of having its humility admired and applauded.
What can be more delicious to a delicate self-love than to hear itself applauded for having none! The truly meek and lowly heart does not want to talk about ME at all, either for good or evil. It wants to forget its very existence. As Fenelon writes, it says to this ME, "I do not know you, and am not interested in you. You are a stranger to me, and I do not care what happens to you nor how you are treated." If people slight you or treat you with neglect, the meek and lowly heart accepts all as its rightful portion. True humility makes us love to be treated, both by God and man, as we feel our imperfections really deserve; and, instead of resenting such treatment, we welcome it and are thankful for it.
And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna.
(Dt 8:2-3} Many of us may be at this moment taking the same sort of medicine that the Lord was obliged to give to the children of Israel. We need, perhaps, to be "humbled," as much as they did, that we may not be tempted to say in our hearts, "My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth." The Lord is therefore obliged to "let us hunger" and to "lead us through the wildernesses" to test us and to humble us. Should this be our experience, we must look at the blessed cure to be wrought and take our medicine, no matter how bitter may be its taste, with cheerful and thankful hearts.
The Apostle Paul understood the true commonsense of humility. He tells the Philippians the causes he had for selfglorification but declares that he "counted all these things but