‘May it not be a comfort to those of us who feel we have not the mental or spiritual power that others have, to notice that the living sacrifice mentioned in Rom. xii. 1 is our “bodies”? Of course, that includes the mental power, but does it not also include the loving, sympathizing glance, the kind, encouraging word, the ready errand for another, the work of our hands, opportunities for all of which come oftener in the day than for the mental power we are often tempted to envy? May we be enabled to offer willingly that which we have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.’
If our feet are to be kept at His disposal, our eyes must be ever toward the Lord for guidance. We must look to Him for our orders where to go. Then He will be sure to give them. ‘The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.’ Very often we find that they have been so very literally ordered for us that we are quite astonished,—just as if He had not promised!
Do not smile at a very homely thought! If our feet are not our own, ought we not to take care of them for Him whose they are? Is it quite right to be reckless about ‘getting wet feet,’ which might be guarded against either by forethought or afterthought, when there is, at least, a risk of hindering our service thereby? Does it please the Master when even in our zeal for His work we annoy anxious friends by carelessness in little things of this kind?
May every step of our feet be more and more like those of our beloved Master. Let us continually consider Him in this, and go where He would have gone, on the errands which He would have done, ‘following hard’ after Him. And let us look on to the time when our feet shall stand in the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, when holy feet shall tread the streets of the holy city; no longer pacing any lonely path, for He hath said, ‘They shall walk with Me in white.’
‘And He hath said, “How beautiful the feet!”
The “feet” so weary, travel-stained, and worn—
The “feet” that humbly, patiently have borne
The toilsome way, the pressure, and the heat.
‘The “feet,” not hasting on with wingèd might,
Nor strong to trample down the opposing foe;