LED 'ROUND'

LED ‘ROUND’

I cannot tell you, though I can tell the Lord, how thankful I was to get your letter. Varied are the ways by which the Lord leads us ‘round’, often not direct, when He would have us to teach others also. Moses was forty years in the wilderness before he was fit to lead the children of Israel. Caleb had to remain forty years in the wilderness after being assured of the land. He must not enter on possession without experience. Paul was allowed to diverge to Jerusalem, that he might be the unflinching witness of the setting aside of the old order of things, and that “the Christ”, in and from heaven, was now the centre and the manifestation of God’s ways and counsels. I think we are sometimes ready to say to the Lord, Could you not have taught me without subjecting me to so much sorrow and humiliation? The answer I have had is, ‘You could not be effectually taught any other way’. The Lord knows the nature of the obstacle in me which He has to overcome: a less efficient hand might think that it could be removed in some other way.

One great comfort is that the greater the struggle, and consequently the greater the victory on the Lord’s side, the greater champion you are for the truth. Paul, the greatest Pharisee, was the greatest witness of the ^[p. 410] free grace of God; and I, from my heart, desire and pray that you may now come out the great witness of Christ’s present interests on the earth.