When we are in the Dark

 When We're in the Dark

I will give thee the treasures of darkness    (Isa - 45:3)

In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. “Thus,” we are told by the guide, “do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light.”

May it not be the same with us in our weaving? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot understand what we are doing. We do not see the web we are weaving. We are not able to discover any beauty, any possible good in our experience. Yet if we are faithful and fail not and faint not, we shall some day know that the most exquisite work of all our life was done in those days when it was so dark.

If you are in the deep shadows because of some strange, mysterious providence, do not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, never doubting. God is watching, and He will bring good and beauty out of all your pain and tears. —J. R. Miller

The shuttles of His purpose move  

To carry out His own design;  

Seek not too soon to disapprove  

His work, nor yet assign  

Dark motives, when, with silent tread,  

You view some sombre fold;  

For lo, within each darker thread  

There twines a thread of gold.  

Spin cheerfully,  

Not tearfully,  

He knows the way you plod;  

Spin carefully,  

Spin prayerfully,  

But leave the thread with God. 

When We Are Ready

*Blessed are all they that wait for him*   (Isa -  30:18)

We hear a great deal about waiting on God. There is, however, another side. When we wait on God, He is waiting till we are ready; when we wait for God, we are waiting till He is ready.

There are some people who say, and many more who believe, that as soon as we meet all the conditions, God will answer our prayers. They say that God lives in an eternal now; with Him there is no past nor future; and that if we could fulfill all that He requires in the way of obedience to His will, immediately our needs would be supplied, our desires fulfilled, our prayers answered.

There is much truth in this belief, and yet it expresses only one side of the truth. While God lives in an eternal now, yet He works out His purposes in time. A petition presented before God is like a seed dropped in the ground. Forces above and beyond our control must work upon it, till the true fruition of the answer is given.—The Still Small Voice

I longed to walk along an easy road,  

And leave behind the dull routine of home,  

Thinking in other fields to serve my God;  

But Jesus said, “My time has not yet come.”  

I longed to sow the seed in other soil,  

To be unfettered in the work, and free,  

To join with other laborers in their toil;  

But Jesus said, “’Tis not My choice for thee.”  

I longed to leave the desert, and be led  

To work where souls were sunk in sin and shame,  

That I might win them; but the Master said,  

“I have not called thee, publish here My name.”  

I longed to fight the battles of my King,  

Lift high His standards in the thickest strife;  

But my great Captain bade me wait and sing  

Songs of His conquests in my quiet life.  

I longed to leave the uncongenial sphere,  

Where all alone I seemed to stand and wait,  

To feel I had some human helper near,  

But Jesus bade me guard one lonely gate.  

I longed to leave the round of daily toil,  

Where no one seemed to understand or care;  

But Jesus said, “I choose for thee this soil,  

That thou might’st raise for Me some blossoms rare.”  

And now I have no longing but to do  

At home, or else afar, His blessed will,  

To work amid the many or the few;  

Thus, “choosing not to choose,” my heart is still.  

—Selected

“And Patience was willing to wait.”—Pilgrim’s Progress

Walk Without Strain

*And he saw them toiling in rowing*   (Mark - 6:48)

Straining, driving effort does not accomplish the work God gives man to do. Only God Himself, who always works without strain, and who never overworks, can do the work that He assigns to His children. When they restfully trust Him to do it, it will be well done and completely done. The way to let Him do His work through us is to partake of Christ so fully, by faith, that He more than fills our life.

A man who had learned this secret once said: “I came to Jesus and I drank, and I do not think that I shall ever be thirsty again. I have taken for my motto, ’Not overwork, but overflow’; and already it has made all the difference in my life.”

There is no effort in overflow. It is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life of omnipotent and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ invites us today and always.—Sunday School Times

Be all at rest, my soul, O blessed secret,  

Of the true life that glorifies thy Lord:  

Not always doth the busiest soul best serve Him,  

But he that resteth on His faithful Word.  

Be all at rest, let not your heart be rippled,  

For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,  

Which the still pool reflects of heaven’s glory—  

And thus the image He would have thee bear.  

Be all at rest, my soul, for rest is service,  

To the still heart God doth His secrets tell;  

Thus shalt thou learn to wait, and watch, and labor,  

Strengthened to bear, since Christ in thee doth dwell.  

For what is service but the life of Jesus,  

Lived through a vessel of earth’s fragile clay,  

Loving and giving and poured forth for others,  

A living sacrifice from day to day.  

Be all at rest, so shalt thou be an answer  

To those who question, “Who is God and where?”  

For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness,  

And they who dwell in Him, His rest shalt share.  

And what shall meet the deep unrest around thee,  

But the calm peace of God that filled His breast?  

For still a living Voice calls to the weary,  

From Him who said, “Come unto Me and rest.”  

—Freda Hanbury Allen

“In resurrection stillness there is resurrection power.”