By My Side the King is Walking

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")