FOR USEFULNESS SEEK QUALITY AND NOT QUANTITY
FOR USEFULNESS SEEK QUALITY AND NOT QUANTITY
I fear for you being overweighted with usefulness.... True usefulness is the result of capacity before the usefulness was attempted; hence the usefulness bears the mark of the capacity which renders it of quality, not quantity! I do not object to usefulness, I rejoice in it, if it be well maintained in keeping with an inner supply giving your capacity for it, but the roots must increase if the branches increase. You would not be a flower which is only sustained in bloom in water; you must give yourself to more prayer and reading than ever because of the outward [p. 149] demand; the roots must be more active in deepening because the branches are so extending and exercised; you cannot force fruit trees two seasons in succession, and if you are forced for fruit this time you must retire the next season and do only a little.
... If you do not keep the sabbatical year, you will, like Israel, be carried into captivity that the land may enjoy her sabbaths; repeated cropping wears out the best land; and the good of fallow is that the soil is exposed to the atmosphere, and thus prepared for fruitfulness. Israel lost the brightest period of favour and blessing when they overlooked the sabbatical year. In that year they were made conscious that they were the objects of God’s favour, and though they toiled not they were partaking of the fruits of the earth with a sense of divine favour that was incomparable. Great assiduity is no evidence of high quality. When Peter went a fishing he was hard at work, yet it was all a mistake. The great assiduity was only to conceal the lack of Christ’s presence and leading. I am only anxious lest you should suffer spiritually, because you do not observe the rest which is the great moment for your soul to receive from the Lord the virtues which would enable you to do works of the first quality.
My soul blesses the dear men who go out ready to lay down their lives in the Lord’s service. I encourage them and commend them to the Lord fully and heartily. If you go to minister to them as John (they had John for their minister), it is the peculiar province of women. Women ministered to the Lord. See Luke 8: 3.