"I don't know," Wesley would say to himself, "whether I am in my right place here or not, whether I am really Christ's servant or not. I am in the dark, and don't seem to be sure of anything. But there is that cabin boy. I can at least do him some good. That is right anyhow, whatever be uncertain." "After which," he says, "I was much easier." It is marvellous to read, but it is a law as certain and safe as gravitation. Do God's will as you know it, and you will get more light. "Doubt of any sort," said Thomas Carlyle, "cannot be removed except by action."
It is hardly necessary to say, of course, that the knowledge which Christ promises to those who will obey God's will is not of dogma in its restricted theological sense. It was life Christ talked about, it was life He was concerned with, and, for Him, life meant not head-knowledge, but heart-experience and heart-hold of God. It is that He promises in His great saying. So do not make the mistake of thinking that when you seek to do the Will of God, all your mental difficulties, about miracles or inspiration or what not else, will come to an end. These are problems, not of life, but of mind, and you have them because God has given you a mind, and you will probably have them as long as your mind is growing. What Christ does promise is of vastly more importance, namely, the light of God's truth in your heart, the assurance of God in your inmost soul, that you shall know for yourself that God is, and that He is near to you, and that your true life is in Him; and when a man has got that length, there are many doctrinal and other mental puzzles for the solution of which he is content to wait with an easy trust and patience.
I like that saying of Viscount Kenmure's, away back in the sixteenth century, "I will lie at Christ's door like a beggar, and, if I may not knock, I will scrape." I like it, for this reason, that I am quite sure there is no essential door of God in earth or heaven which is shut against the man who casts himself so utterly on Him as that. And I take Kenmure's word to illustrate what Jesus meant by If any man will do God's will. It is when a man says, I cannot see, I do not know, my mind is filled with spectres and doubts and questions, but, so help me God, I will do the thing that is right for me, I will walk by what little light I have--it is then, it is to that man that there come infallibly the knowledge which no criticism can shake, and the peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
PRAYER
O Lord our God, we thank Thee for this one straight road out of our doubts, and the difficulties we so often make for ourselves. We bless Thee for the stedfast certainty that no man, who will rise and follow what light he has, shall finally be left in darkness. By doing shall we come to know. As we go upon our clear duty, other truths become more clear. It is our Lord's own doctrine, and in His Name we pray that Thou would'st help us to learn it. Amen.
"The valley of Achor for a
door of hope."
(HOSEA xxv. 15.)
XXII
GOD'S DOOR OF HOPE