FITNESS FOR SERVICE
FITNESS FOR SERVICE
I am much cheered to read your words: that you ‘desire to live and serve the Lord’. Do not be looking for service, look for preparation for it. Joshua was Moses’ minister, and he abode in the tabernacle, but his time for service came. I believe every one has to serve an apprenticeship, if you understand me. We do not know what we are fit for, but if we keep near the Lord He will fit us for the very thing for which He has designed us. We hinder both ourselves and His work by attempting things to which He has not called us. Wisdom is the principle thing. If saints made wisdom more their study wiser work would follow. But too often it is work that is their object, and not wisdom. In wisdom thou hast made all thy works. “Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her” (Proverbs 4: 8). God never puts us in easy places. He places you where you have either to learn or to serve, and you must learn in order to serve. You may rest assured that every advance you make in your spiritual history will be a great joy to me.
What is your mission? A “pound” has been given to every one. Sometimes our mission, like a body of water, is determined for us by the ‘banks’; I call our positive duties banks. We are probationers, constantly being prepared for our mission. It is very interesting to study and comprehend the way the Lord is preparing us for the fulfilment of the service for which He has appointed us. I say we are like tamed elephants who are sent to capture [p. 247] wild ones. We were once of the world, but not now; and we are sent back to the world of wild ones to capture and be of use to the wild ones! The Lord bless you, and keep you simple and happy in the path, and within the banks which He has appointed you,
“showing mercy with cheerfulness”.
‘Walk the path by Him appointed,
All His pleasure to fulfil.’
I believe in the ministry of circumstances as well as in the ministry of the word. The former often makes us attend the better to the latter, and according as we are in accord with the word, the ministry of circumstances comes to be of another order. “We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4: 11).