THE BEGINNING OF SPRING
THE BEGINNING OF SPRING
I hope your winter (if His will) is succeeded by a bright springtime, the ploughing in the winter making your heart more triturated, more disposable and more easily turned to good account. It is not in a moment that the benefit of the winter is known or seen. Many new stars, new worlds of thought and interest were for the first time presented to you during that lengthened night, and it is only by-and-by that you will remember how they first came before you. It was after Jonah came out of the fish’s belly that he put into words the prayer that he had prayed then. This is one of the chief interests in the Psalms, they were written after the experiences, which gave rise to the sentiments, were over and past. The psalm is the review, the history of how one felt in a certain state of things after he was out of them. There are two great subjects in these histories. One is how much the sufferer is indebted to the Lord, and the other, how much he is attracted to the Lord. The first is necessarily ever present and manifest enough. As a rule there is very little about oneself when one is occupied with being indebted to the Lord or attracted to Him. You are consciously indebted to the Lord as you feel the comfort and blessing of deliverance, you feel that He has been for you. The greater the extremity you have reached, the more you feel how absolutely He has been for you, and as you feel this you are devoted to Him. Indebtedness produces devotedness. Attraction springs not so much from His services to you as from a knowledge of His heart or motive, and attraction therefore makes you seek Himself, not His service merely, and produces in you the highest service, which is following [p. 457] Him. I like that word of Peter’s; there was attraction there, ‘Why cannot I follow thee now?’ and hence when fully restored the Lord said unto him, “Follow thou me”. Indebtedness produces the stem and the branches, the flowers and the fruit, but attraction forms the roots, the extending and ever-deepening occupation of heart with Christ Himself. May we each increase in this latter more and more, and thus the other will be only increased and improved. I do not want you to write your psalm until you are farther on in the spring, but the Lord bless you and keep you.