SPIRITUAL ENGROSSMENT
[p. 260] SPIRITUAL ENGROSSMENT
It is one thing to renounce or to drop certain old things, and quite another to be engrossed with the new things. Nuns renounce the world, but they are not engrossed with Christ. It must be not only forgetting the things that are behind, but also a reaching out unto the things that are before. It is what I give myself to that colours me and imparts a character to me; not the fact of having abandoned other things. People often dwell unduly on what they have renounced, and are too indifferent to that which they should pursue, forgetting that it is the latter that will form them, and this is either more or less in proportion to their engrossment with them.
I often feel that we do not duly prize the place we are set in by God. The full sense of His satisfaction in it we can never know here, but what I feel is that we do not occupy ourselves with it as if it were worthy of the deepest engagement of our souls and inexhaustible in its treasures. We make a morning call, or perhaps a daily visit to the mansion, instead of living there and exploring all the chambers and orderings of it.
In natural studies and interests the more we are engrossed, the more we are exhausting our power to be engrossed; it is true that by habit we learn to like engrossment, but at length we can study no more, and the more engrossed you are, the sooner you wear out, like the race-horse. Now in divine engrossment it is the other way: the more engrossed you are, the more power you acquire to be still more so. The more you search into the treasures given you, the more you acquire strength and ability to search on. The higher the eagle goes, the nearer to the sun he gets, and the larger the sphere of objects presented to his strengthened vision. Here indeed is the elixir of life — the more used, the more it can be used. May we diligently use it!
I was greatly interested in a thought on Psalm 23. The green pastures and still waters do not properly give the idea of feeding, but of abundance of supply The soul [p. 261] is not restored, or more properly refreshed, until it finds itself at rest in the abundance of God’s resources. Many a soul feeds and is full that is not revived, so as to be able to walk in the paths of righteousness.