AUGUST 28TH, 1919
AUGUST 28TH, 1919
MY DEAR BROTHER, — I think I can understand your exercises, and all that you feel as to lack of continuous enjoyment. It is surprising how mixed our exercises often are practically. I have thought of it in connection with the word, “I am black but comely”. The exercises and afflictions of the remnant under God’s discipline will be a severe test, and they will be conscious that it has an effect upon them which they deprecate. They will feel that they do not come out in the divine beauty which they would desire. When one is under discipline it is not at the time seen to be matter of joy, but of grief, and this is not exactly divine beauty. There is the consciousness of being affected by it in a way which gives evidence of weakness and imperfection in ourselves — an inability to be superior to the burning rays of the trial through which divine faithfulness may see fit to pass us. And such an experience is not at all inconsistent with conscious comeliness as blessed and accepted in Christ. It is helpful to see the two exercises — apparently [p. 90] as dissimilar and incongruous — going on so nearly together. I suppose very few saints have had to go through a time of testing under God’s disciplinary and governmental dealings without feeling the test of it, and its effect in expressing nature’s weakness. But it is just at this point that confidence in God and His known love strengthens the heart, and one perceives His great thought to have us partake of His holiness. And it is at all times the comfort and joy of faith to see in Christ the establishment of every divine thought of blessing for us — blessing which abides, and never falls below its own level.
The more definitely we seek and cherish continuous nearness to the Lord, and the manifestation of Himself to our hearts, the more will His love be free to take its own way with us. It is His own thought to have us near, and if it is the conscious upright desire of the heart to be near there can be no doubt that His purpose and pleasure, and the heart’s desire, will have their answer. His love, and the Spirit given, are the sure pledge of this.
With very much love in the Lord,
Yours affectionately in Him,
August 28th, 1919.