WEANING

WEANING

It is grateful to me to write to any one who feels the raging of the storm, and is at the same time seeking to find, and finding shelter in the Lord.

What can we say? Does He not know us? Does He not remember our frame? We often think He does not. The time of weaning is often one of great suffering to the soul, but a necessary time. No soul learns truly to be independent of infant helps until it is weaned. It is. surprising how many nurses we have, and it is just in proportion as we attain strength to get on without any of them, that our age, or advance in life, is determined.

I believe that, except very few, each of us is going through a process of weaning; and what is it for? Simply that in our given strength we may be able to depend on God without the supports which betoken our personal feebleness. The suffering in weaning ^[p. 242] arises from the deprivation of something with which we connected the blessings of life; and this evidently may occur in many ways. Satan thought Job could not be weaned, for he said, “Touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face” (Job 1: 11). But Job was weaned. The soul is weaned when it worships God and prays for others. I cannot worship unless my soul be occupied with God. I cannot pray for others if I am occupied with myself, and the loss of any of my channels of comfort.

God must wean us. Oh, what days and nights of bitter soul-tears we shed when the soul is being weaned from some long-enjoyed mercy. Is it that our God would not indulge us? Is it that He who gave His Son for us would deny us anything? No, but He must wean us, or we shall never know what it is to depend on Him apart from any human or natural intervention. Paul, no doubt, often spoke of having no confidence in the flesh, but it was in the prison at Rome that he was entirely weaned.

God’s love can only display itself in its own greatness. If I have learnt the righteousness on which it is based, I shall better understand how much it must correct and subdue in me before it can enjoy itself with me.

If I judge myself in the light of His love I must see how much I need weaning.