SUPPORT AND RESTFULNESS - HOW ACQUIRED

^[p. 61] SUPPORT AND RESTFULNESS — HOW ACQUIRED

May you enter on this year with confidence of heart in the Lord. The children of Israel gathered the manna, and went on gathering until the sun melted it. I mean by this that you are to wait upon the Lord until you have received confidence in His sufficiency for all that may be before you in this coming year. I desire that you should not anticipate anything. It is often easier to bear up under great trials than under small, unexpected ones. The true way is to walk each day in faith. I know nothing of what is before me, but I know that the Lord is before me. This is the way to begin. This is the only way to be supported and kept. But being supported (for support refers to pressure and demand on you), there is still another blessing, and as I call the first confidence, I call the second confidingness. That is, that you open out your heart fully to the Lord, as the queen of Sheba did to Solomon. This will have a marvellous effect on you. It will not only impart great restfulness to you, but there will be a simplicity and genuineness about you because you have no idol, no reserve; you have opened out everything to the Lord, and you are resting in His wisdom as to everything; and at the same time, if you have truly confided in Him, you will be so entranced with Him in His own interests that there will be “no more spirit” in you. You will be (if only for a moment) led into such true deep joy apart from all self-consideration, that you will long for a renewal from it, convinced that there is a happiness where there is no self-consciousness nor thought of self-interest, and this will in a very marked way wean you from all of yourself, even what is gain to you, for Christ.

May you thus enter on this coming year to the Lord’s pleasure and your own deep joy.