Quiet Talks on Power Part 12

A Bunch of Keys.

To those who would enter these inner sacred recesses here is a small bunch of keys which will unlock the doors. Three keys in this bunch; a key-time, a key-book, and a key-word. _The key-time_ is time alone with G.o.d daily. With the door shut. Outside things shut outside, and one's self shut in alone with G.o.d. This is the trysting-hour with our Friend.

Here He will reveal Himself to us, and reveal our real selves to ourselves. This is going to school to G.o.d. It is giving Him a chance to instruct and correct, to strengthen and mellow and sweeten us. One must get alone to find out that he never is alone. The more alone we are so far as men are concerned the least alone we are so far as G.o.d is concerned. It must be unhurried time. Time enough to forget about time.

When the mind is fresh and open. One _must_ use this key if he is to know the sweets of friendship with G.o.d.

_The key-book_ is this marvelous old cla.s.sic of G.o.d's Word. Take this book with you when you go to keep tryst with your Friend. G.o.d speaks in His Word. He will take these words and speak them with His own voice into the ear of your heart. You will be surprised to find how light on every sort of question will come. It is remarkable what a faithful half-hour daily with a good paragraph[34] Bible in wide, swift, continuous reading will do in giving one a swing and a grasp of this old Book. In time, and not long time either, one will come to be saturated with its thought and spirit. Reading the Bible is listening to G.o.d. It is fairly pathetic what a hard time G.o.d has to get men's ears.

He is ever speaking but we will not be quiet enough to hear. One always enjoys listening to his friend. What _this_ Friend says to us will change radically our conceptions of Himself, and of life. It will clear the vision, and discipline the judgment, and stiffen the will.

_The key-word_ is obedience: a glad prompt doing of what our Friend desires _because He desires it_. Obedience is saying "yes" to G.o.d. It is the harmony of the life with the will of G.o.d. With some it seems to mean a servile bondage to details. It should rather mean a spirit of _intelligent_ loyalty to G.o.d. It aims to _learn_ His will, and then to do it. G.o.d's will is revealed in His word. His particular will for my life He will reveal to me if I will listen, _and_, if I will obey, so far as I know to obey. If I obey what I know, I will know more.

Obedience is the organ of knowledge in the soul. "He that willeth to do His will shall know."

G.o.d's will includes His plan for a world, and for each life in the world. Both concern us. He would first work in us, that He may work _through_ us in His pa.s.sionate outreach for a world. His will includes every bit of one's life; and therefore obedience must also include every bit. A run out in a single direction may serve as a suggestion of many others.

The law of my body, which obeyed brings or continues health is G.o.d's will, as much as that which concerns moral action. Our bodies are holy because G.o.d lives in them. Overwork, insufficient sleep, that imprudent diet and eating which seems the rule rather than the exception, carelessness of bodily protection in rain or storm or drafts or otherwise:--these are sins against G.o.d's will for the body, and no one who is disobedient here can ever be a channel of power up to the measure of G.o.d's longing for us.

And so regarding all of one's life, one must ever keep an open mind G.o.dward so as to get a well balanced sense of what His will is. Practice is the great thing here. This is school work. By persistent listening and practising there comes a mature judgment which avoids extremes in both directions. But the rule is this: cheery prompt obeying regardless of consequences. Disobedience, failure to obey, is _breaking with our Friend_.

These are the three keys which will let us into the innermost chambers of friendship with G.o.d. And with them goes a _key-ring_ on which these keys must be strung. It is this:--_implicit trust in G.o.d_. Trust is the native air of friendship. In its native air it grows strong and beautiful. Whatever disturbs an active abiding trust in G.o.d must be driven out of doors, and kept out. Doubt chills the air below normal.

Anxiety overheats the air. A calm looking up into G.o.d's face with an unquestioning faith in _Him_ under every sort of circ.u.mstance--this is trust. Faith has three elements: knowledge, belief and _trust_.

Knowledge is acquaintance with certain facts. Belief is accepting these facts as true. _Trust is risking_ something that is very precious. Trust is the life-blood of faith. This is the atmosphere of the true natural life as planned by G.o.d.

"If a wren can cling To a spray a-swing In a mad May wind, and sing, and sing, As if she'd burst for joy; Why cannot I, Contented lie, In His quiet arms, beneath His sky, Unmoved by earth's annoy?"

Shall we take these keys, and this key-ring and use them faithfully? It will mean intimate friendship with G.o.d. And that is the one secret of power, fresh, and ever freshening.

There is a simple story told of an old German friend of G.o.d which ill.u.s.trates all of this with a charming picturesqueness. Professor Johan Albrecht Bengal was a teacher in the seminary in Denkendorf, Germany, in the eighteenth century. "He united profound reverence for the Bible with an acuteness which let nothing escape him." The seminary students used to wonder at the great intellectuality, and great humility and Christliness which blended their beauty in him. One night, one of them, eager to learn the secret of his holy life, slipped up into his apartments while the professor was out lecturing in the city, and hid himself behind the heavy curtains in the deep recess of the old-fashioned window. Quite a while he waited until he grew weary and thought of how weary his teacher must be with his long day's work in the cla.s.s-room and the city. At length he heard the step in the hall, and waited breathlessly to learn the coveted secret. The man came in, changed his shoes for slippers, and sitting down at the study table, opened the old well-thumbed German Bible and began reading leisurely page by page. A half-hour he read, three-quarters of an hour, an hour, and more yet. Then leaning his head down on his hands for a few minutes in silence he said in the simplest most familiar way, "Well, Lord Jesus, we're on the same old terms. Good-night."

If we might live like that. Begin the day with a bit of time alone, a good-morning talk with Him. And as the day goes on in its busy round sometimes to put out your hand to Him, and under your breath say, "let's keep on good terms, Lord Jesus." And then when eventide comes in to go off alone with Him for a quiet look into His face, and a good-night talk, and to be able to say, with reverent familiarity: "Good-night, Lord Jesus, we are on the same old terms, you and I, good-night." Ah!

such a life will be fairly fragrant with the very presence of G.o.d.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Hosea xiv: 5.

[26] John vii: 37-39.

[27] Ezekiel xlvii: 1-12.

[28] 1 Thessalonians iv: 8 1 Corinthians xii: 1-11.

2 Corinthians xi: 4 Galatians iii: 2-5; iv: 6; v: 5, 18,[D] 22-25.

Romans viii: 1-27, xv: 13.

Colossians i: 8.

Philippians iii: 3.

t.i.tus iii: 5-6.

[Transcriber's Note D: Original had "18, 18,"]

[29] Acts xix: 1-7.

[30] 1 Thessalonians v: 19.

[31] Galatians v: 16.

[32] Ephesians iv: 30.

[33] Eph. v: 18.

[34] One beauty of the revised version is its paragraphing.