If this was Paul's prayer for his converts, it should be our aim for
ourselves. Christ is ready to direct our hearts, if we will let Him. All
depends on our yielding to that sweet direction, loving as that of a
mother's hand on her child's shoulder.
What is our duty and wisdom in view of these truths? The answer may be
thrown into the shape of one or two brief counsels.
First, desire it. Do you Christian people want to be led to love God
more? Are you ready to love the world less, which you will have to do if
you love God more? Do you wish Christ to lay His hand upon you, and
withdraw you from much, that He may draw you into the sanctities and
sublimities of His own experienced love? I do not think the lives of
some of us look very like as if we should welcome that direction. And it
is a sharp test, and a hard commandment to say to a Christian professor,
'Desire to be led into the love of God.'
Again, expect it. Do not dismiss all that I have been saying about a
present Christ leading men by their own impulses, which are His
monitions, as fanatical and mystical and far away from daily experience.
Ah! it is not only the boy Samuel whose infancy was an excuse for his
ignorance, who takes God's voice to be only white-bearded Eli's. There
are many of us who, when Christ speaks, think it is only a human voice.
Perhaps His deep and gentle tones are thrilling through my harsh and
feeble voice; and He is now, even by the poor reed through which He
breathes His breath, saying to some of you, 'Come near to Me.' Expect
the guidance.
Still your own wills that you may hear His voice. How can you be led if
you never look at the Guide? How can you hear that still small voice
amidst the clattering of spindles, and the roar of wagons, and the
noises in your own heart? Be still, and He will speak.
Follow the guidance, and at once, for delay is fatal. Like a man walking
behind a guide across some morass, set your feet in the print of the
Master's and keep close at His heels, and then you will be safe. And so,
dear friends, if we want to have anchorage for our love, let us set our
love on God, who alone is worthy of it, and who alone of all its objects
will neither fail us nor change. If we would have the temper which lifts
us above the ills of life and enables us to keep our course unaffected
by them all, as the gentle moon moves with the same silent, equable pace
through piled masses of cloud and clear stretches of sky, we must attain
submission through love, and gain unreluctant endurance and steadfast
wills from the example and source of both, the gentle and strong
Christ. If we would have our hearts calm, we must let Him guide them,
sway them, curb their vagrancies, stimulate their desires, and satisfy
the desires which He has stimulated. We must abandon self, and say,
'Lord, I cannot guide myself. Do Thou direct my wandering feet.' The
prayer will not be in vain. He will guide us with His eye, and that
directing of our hearts will issue in experiences of love and patience,
whose 'very sweetness yieldeth proof that they were born for
immortality.' The Guide and the road foreshadow the goal. The only
natural end to which such a path can lead and such guidance point is a
heaven of perfect love, where patience has done its perfect work, and is
called for no more. The experience of present direction strengthens the
hope of future perfection. So we may take for our own the triumphant
confidence of the Psalmist, and embrace the nearest and the remotest
future in one calm vision of faith that 'Thou wilt guide me with Thy
counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.'