I LOVED this and I’m eager to share it with you, from In the
Secret Place:
The Lord working with them. Mark 16:20
He had gone away. The heavens had received Him. He was on the
right hand of God. Yet He was as near His
servants and friends as he had ever been.
The Lord worked with them; and they healed the sick, and turned to
flight the armies of the aliens, and founded the empire of truth and
righteousness and peace.
It is a word for me, when I complain that I cannot encounter
wisely and successfully the opposition of the enemy, or rouse the careless from
their apathetic sleep, or take the young and faltering by the hand and lead
them on. It ought to banish my accidie (a state of listlessness or torpor; depression, distraction or despair leading to spiritual paralysis.)
The Lord works with
me, to associate His interests with mine. They are His tasks on which I am
engaged. It is His cause which, with
many frailties and many mistakes, I am seeking to advance. He knows it, and my prayers and efforts are
dear to Him. He identifies Himself with
them. He attains His mighty and eternal
purpose through them. He and I are on
one pilgrimage towards one end. My
Master cannot dispense with me.
The Lord works with me, to teach me His temper and mind as I
prosecute His enterprises. It is hard to
be long-suffering with the adversaries, Hard to be loving and patient with the
backward and heedless, hard to be brave when my own heart faints and
fails. But I turn to Him who is never so
far off as even to be near. I have a fresh
glimpse of His illimitable compassion,
His persevering tenderness, the fire of His zeal. And I embrace my task again, and lift my
cross, in something of His spirit.
The Lord works for me, and success is sure. My failure would be His failure, and He
cannot desert the soldier who is engaged in His crusade; He must see that
ultimately I prevail. My arm may be
feeble but He will nerve it to strike the strenuous and decisive blow. My feet may tire quickly, but He will make my
shoes iron and brass for the roughness of the road and the delays of the
campaign. My speech may be slow and
stammering; but He will be my mouth and wisdom.
They always win with whom God sides.
When William Burns died the Chinese converts round his bed
looked for his property, that they might gather it together. They found a Chinese and English Bible, a
worn and much-used writing case, a lantern, a single Christian dress, and a
blue flag of his gospel boat. That was
everything which the burning-hearted missionary owned. “He must have been very poor”, a child
whispered in the stillness of the room.
He was very poor; but he made many very rich: for his Lord kept company
with him, and he led multitudes into the way of peace, and the pleasure of
Jesus Christ prospered in his hands. Can
I ask a life sublime, happier, more opulent, more enduring?
--from Alexander Smellie (pronounced "smiley")