CONCEPTION AND EXECUTION

CONCEPTION AND EXECUTION

The virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 works very hard, but it is not herself but “her husband” — Christ — who “is known in the gates”. It is not an easy thing to work on and never to be noticed. To do it so entirely and secretly to Him that no one knows anything about it but Himself, and to this service women are especially called. They ministered unto him, we read in Luke’s gospel. Remember, one does not become handy or skilful in execution all in a moment. The vessel must be educated and habituated to answer to the new power, the power of Christ, and there will be for a time awkwardness, even where there is a true desire to succeed. You must not think that because your aim and desires are good that you are qualified at once to accomplish all you desire; if you have a sense of your inability to reach so good and so high an aim, there will be a treading softly, a quiet waiting on the Lord for wisdom and skill. I would not repress the aim, or the desire to succeed, all I condemn is the thought, that because your purpose and intentions are right you must therefore be able to accomplish them.

Conception is one thing, and execution is quite another. Grace may have furnished you with a true conception, but you must wait on God to carry it out. It was fourteen years from the time Paul was in the third heaven until he was fitted to bring out the truth revealed to him there. The working out of a true conception is the real discipline. Caleb had tasted of the grapes of Eshcol forty years before ^[p. 250] he was called to occupy and possess the ground where they grew.

You have to learn from the salmon. It wants to surmount the weir, but after repeated ineffectual attempts, at last it has recourse to self-contraction. It takes its tail in its mouth and makes another dash at the weir, and succeeds! There may be desire and purpose to ascend, but there can be no success until self-denial is practically learned.