_BUT----!_
"_And Moses answered and said, But_----"
--EXODUS iv. 1-9.
We know that "but." God has heard it from our lips a thousand times. It is
the response of unbelief to the divine call. It is the reply of fear to
the divine command. It is the suggestion that the resources are
inadequate. It is a hint that God may not have looked all round. He has
overlooked something which our own eyes have seen. The human "buts" in the
Scriptural stories make an appalling record.
"Lord, I will follow Thee, but----" There is something else to be attended
to before discipleship can begin. Obedience is not primary: it must wait
for something else. And so our obedience is not a straight line: it is
crooked and circuitous; it takes the way of by-path meadow instead of the
highway of the Lord. We do not wait upon the Lord's pleasure; we make Him
wait upon ours.
There need be no "buts" in our relationship to the King's will. Everything
has been foreseen. Nothing will take the Lord by surprise. The entire
field has been surveyed, and the preparations are complete. When the Lord
says to thee or me, "I will send thee," every provision has been made for
the appointed task. "I will not fail thee."