Kept for the Master's Use

by Frances Ridley Havergal

‘Keep my life, that it may be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.’

Many a heart has echoed the little song:

‘Take my life, and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee!’

And yet those echoes have not been, in every case and at all times, so clear, and full, and firm, so continuously glad as we would wish, and perhaps expected. Some of us have said:

‘I launch me forth upon a sea

Of boundless love and tenderness;’

and after a little we have found, or fancied, that there is a hidden leak in our barque, and though we are doubtless still afloat, yet we are not sailing with the same free, exultant confidence as at first. What is it that has dulled and weakened the echo of our consecration song? what is the little leak that hinders the swift and buoyant course of our consecrated life? Holy Father, let Thy loving spirit guide the hand that writes, and strengthen the heart of every one who reads what shall be written, for Jesus’ sake.

While many a sorrowfully varied answer to these questions may, and probably will, arise from touched and sensitive consciences, each being shown by God’s faithful Spirit the special sin, the special yielding to temptation which has hindered and spoiled the blessed life which they sought to enter and enjoy, it seems to me that one or other of two things has lain at the outset of the failure and disappointment.