COMING FROM THE HOME
COMING FROM THE HOME
My desire for you is that you should know what it is not only to go to the Lord, as the retreat and home of your heart, but to come from Him. I think you are well versed in going to Him, but the coming from Him, bearing His stamp, though consequent on the first, is yet different from it. It is easier to live in one’s home than in one’s business. There is a greater tax on one’s life, and its powers, in business and toil, than in the easy leisure of home. And this is just the difference between the corn of the land and the manna. The former is the life of Christ in heaven, where all is one unbroken scene of light and perfection, while the latter, the manna, is the life of Christ as He walked on earth where everything is adverse; where there is a continued strain, and exaction: no home, but toil; toil all the working hours. I find many saints, like young retrievers, are ready to go hunting, before they have been taught; that is to say - many try to live Christ, before they have lived on Christ, and a difficulty for a teacher is to lead them to Christ where He is. They are ready enough, like the young hounds, to run here and there for game, before they have learned the right way of searching for it. Now you have learned what it is to go into heaven and feed on Christ there, to eat of the corn of the land, where all is exquisite stillness, and restful enjoyment; but though you know much of the exercise which only the manna can meet, yet here your growth will be. I do not mean now in answering to the ordinary details of life; surely that will be included; but the purpose and the power to come from the Lord like a giant, refreshed with wine,
[p. 224] or as the sun to run his course, would give a very distinct and enlarged scope to everything within your compass. A tree growing, and a tree bearing fruit, present very different aspects. In the former it is advancing - ever ascending upward. In the latter, the progress or fruit is pendent - turned downwards, soliciting as it were, the owner to pluck it, and be gratified. You go up for yourself, and you come down for the Lord. Everything is bright and encouraging as you ascend - as you enter your proper home. I am rejoiced that you know what are the endearments of that eternal rest; but then it is what you have learned there (for there your love for the Lord is satisfied and confirmed), that you have to express here, where there is one continued opposition, where your greatest friend is your armour-bearer.
The more I am at home above, the less do I expect to find any home here. But this is not the only point: the more you are furnished from above the more are you in fellowship with Christ’s sufferings here; I might be for ever seeking rest, away from the fogs of this world, or like a prisoner in a dark cell, admiring and detained by every ray of light which had struggled into the dreary chamber. I might most truly desire the company of the Lord in my circumstances, but this is a long way off from walking beside Him in His circumstances. If so be that we suffer with Him; and this is death. I do not think we sympathise with Him until we have learned His sympathy in death. The desire for His company is long before. But I must know His company with me, not in my judicial death, from which His blood has released me, but in the pressure and desolation of death here which His company alone can assuage. It is consequent on this that I can have fellowship with His sufferings - really gird myself for a path of death - not for myself; that I have gone through already, but for Him, whose company I enjoy where He is. I must come into the scene full [p. 225] of what He is to me, in my home, before I can be for Him here; the leaf not withering, and the tree not ceasing to yield fruit, for the good and comfort of others.