1. Nothing Kept Back
Nothing Kept Back
DON’T SAY “IT DOESN’T MATTER” about anything (except your own feelings), for everything matters. Everything is important, even the tiniest thing. If you do everything, whether great or small, for the sake of your Savior and Lord, then you will be ready for whatever work he has chosen for you to do later.
IF THE NEXT STEP IS CLEAR, then the one thing to do is to take it. Don’t pledge your Lord or yourself about the steps beyond. You don’t see them yet.
BUT THE TIME FOR CHOICE is passing, and the chance to choose comes only once. I have often sat on the rocks by our mountain river and known that never for one moment was I looking at the water of a moment before.
OFTEN HIS CALL IS TO FOLLOW in paths we would not have chosen. But if in truth we say, “Anywhere, Lord,” he takes us at our word and orders our goings, and then he puts a new song in our mouths, even a thanksgiving unto our God (Ps. 40:2–3). There is wonderful joy to be had from knowing that we are not in the way of our own choice. At least I have found it so. It gives a peculiar sort of confidence that even we – we who are nothings – are being “ordered” in our goings. It is very good to be “ordered” by our beloved Lord.
WE WALK ON ROCK, not on quicksand, when we obey. But there is no promise that the rock will be a leveled path, or like the carpet of roses that Cleopatra spread for the officers of Mark Antony.
Sooner or later God meets every trusting child who is following him up the mountain and says, “Now prove that you believe this that you have told me you believe, and that you have taught others to believe.” Then is your opportunity. God knows, and you know, that there was always a hope in your heart that a certain way would not be yours. “Anything but that, Lord,” had been your earnest prayer. And then, perhaps quite suddenly, you found your feet set on that way, that and no other. Do you still hold fast to your faith that he maketh your way perfect?
It does not look perfect. It looks like a road that has lost its sense of direction; a broken road, a wandering road, a strange mistake. And yet, either it is perfect, or all that you have believed crumbles like a rope of sand in your hands. There is no middle choice between faith and despair.
DON’T BE SURPRISED if temptations come. The one way is to throw yourself, everything you have to give, into the service to which you have been called. Paul spoke of himself as an offering poured out on “the sacrifice and service of your faith” (Phil. 2:17). That’s what you must be, nothing kept back. And as you give all, you find all.
OUR LORD DID NOT SAY, “Go ye into all the world if you feel an ardent flame of love to all the people in it.” He just said, “Go ye,” and as we obey, he gives us all we need to lead them to him. And of course as we most of all need love, he gives it to us.
I THINK OFTEN WE ACCEPT the cross in theory, but when it comes to practice, we either do not recognize it for what it is, or we recognize it and try to avoid it. This we can always do, for the cross is something that can be taken up or left, just as we choose. It is not illness (that comes to all), or bereavement (that also is the common lot of man). It is something voluntarily suffered for the sake of the Lord Jesus, some denial of self that would not be if we were not following him.
THE STORY OF MARY breaking her pot of ointment (John 12:3) made me think of some among us who love their Savior and yet have not broken theirs. Something is held back, and so there is no outpouring of that love, no fragrance in the house. It is shut up, not given.
The days are passing so quickly. Soon it will be too late to pour all we have on his feet.
SOME FIND THEMSELVES in the midst of clouds and darkness because of the sinful deeds of others. And yet the wrongdoing of another should have no power to darken the way of a child of God…. The same word is comfort if the trouble be the result of our own doing. A wrong turning was taken at the foot of the hill. A wrong decision was made which has affected the whole course of life. The husband has been handicapped by a wife who can never enter into his deepest thoughts. The wife has been held from the highest she knew by the husband whose eyes were on the plains. Divided counsels in the bringing up of children tell upon the children. That means sorrow.
These circumstances were not the choice of God for those lives, but it is impossible to go back and begin again, and each day will bring its trials of patience and its private griefs.
View all this as a glorious chance to prove the power of your God to keep you in peace and in hope and in sweetness of spirit. In that sense “expose yourself” to those circumstances. Do not fret against them. Do not fret those who cause them to be by a dour countenance. “Beloved, let us love” is a wonderful word for such difficult situations. And love is happy, not dour.
BUT HE THAT IS DOWN need fear no fall. He that is down cannot get between God and his glory. And we knew then that there was nothing that he could not do through us if only we were nothing.
A CRUCIFIED LIFE cannot be self-assertive. It cannot protect itself. It cannot be startled into resentful words. The cup that is full of sweetness cannot spill bitter drops however sharply knocked.
I HAVE BEEN ASKING that our dearest Lord may have the joy (surely it must be a joy to him) of saying about each one of us, and about us all as a little company of his children: “I can count on him, on her, on them for anything. I can count on them for peace under any disappointment or series of disappointments, under any strain. I can trust them never to set limits, saying, ‘Thus far, and no farther.’ I can trust them not to offer the reluctant obedience of a doubtful faith, but to be as glad and merry as it is possible.”
WE HAVE HAD FREQUENT JOY in the conversion of workmen during the last few years; most have been won not so much by what was said, as by what they saw in the everyday lives of the brothers, Indian or European, with whom they had to do. After they had seen something that they recognized as genuine and not of earth, they were willing to listen to the heavenly message, and then the entrance of our Savior’s words brought light. “What made me want to be a Christian was seeing D.’s life. He never passed bad work, but he never lost his temper,” said one in answer to a question about how he first became interested. D. came to us some years ago – a very thirsty and very unhappy boy. His thirst was quenched, his soul revived, and now the men he oversees bear this witness.
OUR MASTER HAS NEVER PROMISED us success. He demands obedience. He expects faithfulness. Results are his concern, not ours. And our reputation is a matter of no consequence at all.
ONE DAY I FELT the “I” in me rising hotly, and quite clearly – so clearly that I could show you the place on the floor of the room where I was standing when I heard it – the word came, “See in it a chance to die.” To this day that word is life and release to me, and it has been to many others. See in this which seems to stir up all you most wish were not stirred up – see in it a chance to die to self in every form.
IN THE MOUNTAIN FORESTS to the west of Dohnavur our children find the cocoon of the atlas moth. It hangs from a twig, like a small brown bag tied up and left there and forgotten, a mere two inches of papery bag, and however often we see it we are never prepared for the miracle that emerges. For miracle it is: a large, almost bird-like creature struggles slowly through the very narrow neck of the bag. It has wings of crimson and pink, and blended green of various soft tones, shading off into terra cotta, brown, old-gold. Each wing has a window made of a clear substance like a delicate flake of talc, and on the edge of each is a pattern of wavy lines or dots, or some other dainty device. From wing-tip to wing-tip, nine, sometimes ten, inches of beauty, one of God’s lovely wonders – that is what comes out of the brown paper bag. Nothing preserved in a glass case can show it, for the colors fade, but fresh from the hands of its Creator it is like something seen in a dream, pure faerie.
The radiant emergence of butterfly from chrysalis has often been used to illustrate that which will be when we put on immortality, but I am thinking of this exquisite thing in another way now. What if our life within these detaining months or years be like the life within the dull brown bag of the cocoon? One day something will emerge to the glory of his grace. Can we not, then, sustained by the bread of heaven and the good wine, continue in this hidden labor and spiritual fight till the sunset colors kindle and the stars appear?