| Things to Live For |
Chapter 15 |
Page 5 |
Not in common attainment and achievement only, but also in spiritual life and culture, does this truth apply. Several of our Lord’s miracles illustrate this. For example, when the ten lepers cried to him for mercy, he bade them go and show themselves to the priests. This seemed indeed a strange command to give. The law required that when lepers were actually cured they were to show themselves to their priest to obtain a certificate of healing. If these lepers had been cured, their duty would have been to visit the priest. But although there was not as yet a trace of any change in their flesh, the lepers obeyed, setting out at once to find their priests. “And as they went, they were cleansed.” If they had waited to see the cleansing come in their flesh before they would start, they would never have seen it. God was waiting to cleanse them; and the moment their faith began to work, the blessing came.
In precisely the same way do the blessings of spiritual life come to us. Every invitation of grace carries in it a promise of mercy and favor. Sinners are invited to come to Christ, and they have the promise of divine life in them when they come. As they take the first steps, the new life begins to flow into their soul. If they waited to get the life before they would obey the call of Christ, they would wait in vain. This would be over waiting for God. We are invited to follow Christ. As we begin to go after him, the way opens. If we waited for it to open before we would set out after him, it would not open at all. It will open only to faith. We are commanded to take up certain duties. It sees to us that we cannot do them. We say we have no strength. But as we take them up, skill and strength come to us in a mysterious way, and the duties are easy. We are set to fight certain battles. We say we can never be victorious; that we never can conquer these enemies. But as we enter into the conflict, One come and fights by our side, and through him we are more than conquerors. But if we had waited, trembling and fearing, for our Helper to come before we would join the battle, we should have waited in vain. This would have been the over waiting of unbelief.
So it is in all life. We have a duty of waiting for God; but we must beware lest we over wait, and miss the blessing and the good that God himself is waiting to give us, as our faith claims it.
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