ALONE WITH THE LORD
[p. 155] ALONE WITH THE LORD
If the blessed Lord liked companions when He was here, and surely not one of those whom He had could have apprehended Him much, how much more is any fellowship in the Spirit to each of us where we are all so much on a level? It is only in company that we learn one another’s real history. How many of our acquaintances know nothing of the exercises of heart through which we pass!
The outside and visible trials are apparent to any thoughtful heart, but the inward — the invisible — how little are they even conjectured oftentimes! He — blessed be His name — knows all, and to the deepest exercise of heart He ministers first, and chiefly. What you cannot tell any one you can tell Him, if you have confidingness in Him. Confidingness is that I believe in His perfect wisdom as well as in His goodness. It is a great thing to be able to go on alone with the Lord, and apart from any human friend, and to be here in all the calm dignity that the sense of His sympathy imparts. I have often to say that there are trials which every one can see and sympathise with, while there are others which no one can see, and consequently cannot sympathise with. The latter must be borne in secret with the Lord. It is here we learn when truly with the Lord what it is to cross our Jordan — alone with Him — enjoying Him in the scene where He is, in the power of the Spirit. Then there is, as it were, “no more spirit” in us as regards the things to which natural life connects us. We are perfectly happy apart from everything with Him; we are over, and the more practically we accept this as our proper life, the less we expect here, the more we are dissociated from all here; and yet we are able to be here better than ever. The man most out of this scene in divine power is the man best able to act in it while here for God. To cross the Jordan is ever real death to man naturally, but the Lord likes our company too well to allow us, when our hearts are toward Him, to be unacquainted with the full effects for us of His death and resurrection. We have died with Him that we might enjoy His life in fellowship with Him. Hence “we which live are alway delivered unto death” (2 Corinthians 4: 11).