If life has a clear, definite aim, and especially if its aim is the
highest, there will be detachment from, and abandonment of, many lower
ones. Nothing worth doing is done, and nothing worth being is realised
in ourselves, except on condition of resolutely ignoring much that
attracts. 'They went forth'; Haran must be given up if Canaan is to be
reached. Artists are content to pay the price for mastery in their art,
students think it no hardship to remain ignorant of much in order to
know their own subject thoroughly; men of business feel it no sacrifice
to give up culture, leisure, and sometimes still higher things, such as
love and purity, to win wealth. And we shall not be Christians after
Christ's heart unless we practise similar restrictions. The stream that
is to flow with impetus sufficient to scour its bed clear of
obstructions must not be allowed to meander in side branches, but be
banked up in one channel. Sometimes there must be actual surrender and
outward withdrawal from lower aims which, by our weakness, have become
rival aims; always there must be subordination and detachment in heart
and mind. The compass in an iron ship is disturbed by the iron, unless
it has been adjusted; the golden apples arrest the runner, and there
are clogs and weights in every life, which have to be laid aside if the
race is to be won. The old pilgrim fashion is still the only way. We
must do as Abram did: leave Haran and its idols behind us, and go
forth, ready to dwell, if need be, in deserts, and as sojourners even
when among cities, or we shall not reach the 'land that is very far
off.' It is near us if we forsake self and the 'things seen and
temporal,' but it recedes when we turn our hearts to these.
'Into the land of Canaan they came.' No man honestly and rightly seeks
God and fails to find Him. No man has less goodness and Christ-likeness
than he truly desires and earnestly pursues. Nearer aims are often
missed, and it is well that they should be. We should thank God for
disappointments, for hopes unfulfilled, or proving still greater
disappointments when fulfilled. It is mercy that often makes the
harvest from our sowing a scanty one, for so we are being taught to
turn from the quest in which searching has no assurance of finding, to
that in which to seek is to find. 'I have never said to any of the seed
of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain.' We may not reach other lands which seem
to us to be lands of promise, or when we do, may find that the land is
'evil and naughty,' but this land we shall reach, if we desire it, and
if, desiring it, we go forth from this vain world. The Christian life
is the only one which has no failures, no balked efforts, no frustrated
aims, no brave settings out and defeated returnings. The literal
meaning of one of the Old Testament words for _sin_ is missing the
mark, and that embodies the truth that no man wins what he seeks who
seeks satisfaction elsewhere than in God. Like the rivers in Asiatic
deserts, which are lost in the sand and never reach the sea, all lives
which flow towards anything but God are dissipated and vain.
But the supreme realisation of an experience like Abram's is reserved
for another life. No pilgrim Zion-ward perishes in the wilderness, or
loses his way or fails to come to 'the city of habitation.' 'They go
from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before
God.' And when they appear there, they will think no more, just as this
narrative says nothing, of the sandy, salt, waterless wildernesses, or
the wearinesses, dangers, and toils of the road. The experience of the
happy travellers, who have found all which they sought and are at home
for ever in the fatherland towards which they journeyed, will all be
summed up in this, that 'they went forth to go into the land of Canaan,
and into the land of Canaan they came.'