CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
Is God in Everything?
One of the greatest obstacles to an unwavering experience in the interior life is the difficulty of seeing God in everything. People say, “I can easily submit to things that come from God, but I cannot submit to man, and most of my trials and crosses come through human instrumentality.” Or they say, “It is all well enough to talk of trusting, but when I commit a matter to God, man is sure to come in and disarrange it all. And while I have no difficulty in trusting God, I do see serious difficulties in the way of trusting men.”
Nearly everything in life comes to us through human instrumentalities, and most of our trials are the result of somebody’s failure or ignorance or carelessness or sin. We know God cannot be the author of these things, and yet, unless He is the agent in the matter, how can we say to Him about it, “Thy will be done”?
Moreover, things in which we can see God’s hand always have a sweetness in them that comforts while it wounds. But the trials inflicted by man are full of nothing but bitterness.
What is needed, then, is to see God in everything and to receive everything directly from His hands with no intervention of second causes. And it is to this that we must be brought before we can know an abiding experience of entire abandonment and perfect trust. Our abandonment must be to God, not to man. And our trust must be in Him, not in any arm of flesh, or we shall fail at the first trial.
The question here confronts us at once, “But is God in everything, and have we any warrant from the scripture for receiving everything from His hands without regarding the second causes that may have been instrumental in bringing them about?” I answer to this, unhesitatingly, “Yes.” To the children of God, everything comes directly from their Father’s hand, no matter who or what may have been the apparent agents. There are no “second causes” for them.
The whole teaching of scripture asserts and implies this. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. The very hairs of our head are all numbered. We are not to be careful about anything, because our Father cares for us. We are not to avenge ourselves, because our Father has charged Himself with our defense. We are not to fear, for the Lord is on our side. No one can be against us, because He is for us. We shall not want, for He is our Shepherd. When we pass through the rivers, they shall not overflow us, and when we walk through the fire, we shall not be burned, because He will be with us. He shuts the mouths of lions that they cannot hurt us. “He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.’ So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”
To my own mind, these scriptures, and many others like them, settle forever the question as to the power of “second causes” in the life of the children of God. Second causes must all be under the control of our Father, and not one of them can touch us except with His knowledge and by His permission. It may be the sin of man that originates the action, and therefore the thing itself cannot be said to be the will of God; but by the time it reaches us, it has become God’s will for us and must be accepted as directly from His hands. No man or company of men, no power in earth or heaven can touch that soul that is abiding in Christ without first passing through His encircling presence and receiving the seal of His permission. If God be for us, it matters not who may be against us; nothing can disturb or harm us except He shall see that it is best for us and shall stand aside to let it pass.
If the child is in his father’s arms, nothing can touch him without the father’s consent unless he is too weak to prevent it. And even if this should be the case, he suffers the harm first in his own person before he allows it to reach his child. How much more will our heavenly Father, whose love is infinitely greater and whose strength and wisdom can never be baffled, care for us! I am afraid there are some, even of God’s own children, who scarcely think that He is equal to themselves in tenderness and love and thoughtful care, and who, in their secret thoughts, charge Him with a neglect and indifference of which they would feel themselves incapable. The truth really is that His care is infinitely superior to any possibilities of human care and that He, who counts the very hairs of our heads and suffers not a sparrow to fall without Him, takes note of the minutest matters that can affect the lives of His children and regulates them all according to His own perfect will, let their origin be what they may.
The instances of this are numberless. Take Joseph. What could have seemed more apparently on the face of it the result of sin and utterly contrary to the will of God than the action of his brothers in selling him into slavery? And yet Joseph, in speaking of it, said, “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” It was undoubtedly sin in Joseph’s brothers, but by the time it had reached Joseph, it had become God’s will for him and was, in truth, though he did not see it then, the greatest blessing of his whole life. I learned this lesson practically and through experience long years before I knew the scriptural truth concerning it. I was attending a prayer meeting held in the interests of the life of faith when a strange lady rose to speak. I looked at her, wondering who she could be, little thinking she was to bring a message to my soul that would teach me a grand practical lesson. She said she had great difficulty in living the life of faith on account of the second causes that seemed to her to control nearly everything that concerned her. Her perplexity became so great that at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth about it, whether He really was in everything or not. After praying this for a few days, she had what she described as a vision. She thought she was in a perfectly dark place, and there advanced toward her, from a distance, a body of light that gradually surrounded and enveloped her and everything around her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, “This is the presence of God! This is the presence of God!” While surrounded with this presence, all the great and awful things in life seemed to pass before her—fighting armies, wicked men, raging beasts, storms and pestilences, sin and suffering of every kind. She shrank back at first in terror. But she soon saw that the presence of God so surrounded and enveloped herself and each one of these things, that not a lion could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the air, except as the presence of God moved out of the way to permit it. And she saw that if there were ever so thin a film, as it were, of this glorious presence between herself and the most terrible violence, not a hair of her head could be ruffled, nor anything touch her, except as the presence divided to let the evil through. Then all the small and annoying things of life passed before her; and equally she saw that there also she was so enveloped in this presence of God that not a cross look, nor harsh word, nor petty trial of any kind could affect her, unless God’s encircling presence moved out of the way to let it.
Her difficulty vanished. Her question was answered forever. God was in everything. Would that it were only possible to make every Christian see this truth as plainly as I see it! For I am convinced it is the only clue to a completely restful life.
I once heard of a poor woman who earned a precarious living by daily labor but was a joyous, triumphant Christian.
“Ah, Nancy,” said a gloomy Christian lady to her one day, who almost disapproved of her constant cheerfulness and yet envied it. “Ah, Nancy, it is all well enough to be happy now, but I should think the thoughts of your future would sober you. Only suppose, for instance, that you should have a spell of sickness and be unable to work. Or suppose your present employers should move away and no one else should give you anything to do; or suppose—”
“Stop!” cried Nancy. “I never supposes. De Lord is my shepherd, and I knows I shall not want. And, honey,” she added to her gloomy friend, “it’s all dem supposes as is makin’ you so mis’able. You’d better give dem all up and just trust de Lord.”
Nothing else but this: seeing God in everything will make us loving and patient with those who annoy and trouble us.
Nothing else will completely put an end to all murmuring or rebelling thoughts. If our Father permits a trial to come, it must be because the trial is the sweetest and best thing that could happen to us, and we must accept it with thanks from His dear hand. This does not mean, however, that we must like or enjoy the trial itself, but that we must like God’s will in the trial. A good illustration of this may be found in the familiar fact of a mother giving medicine to her dearly loved child. The bottle holds the medicine, but the mother gives it; so the bottle is not responsible, but the mother.
The human beings around us are often the bottles that hold our medicine, but it is our Father’s hand of love that pours out the medicine and compels us to drink it.
Shall we rebel against the human bottles then? Shall we not rather take thankfully from our Father’s hand the medicine they contain?
If He always has His way, then we always have our way also, and we reign in a perpetual kingdom. He who sides with God cannot fail to win in every encounter; and whether the result is joy or sorrow, failure or success, death or life, we may under all circumstances join in the apostle’s shout of victory, “Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ!”