LOOKING UP
A. R. Stevens
I think, brethren, we would all agree that running alongside of obedience is the thought of dependence. It is a quality that is very pleasurable to God. It was seen in perfection in our Lord Jesus Christ, who we know was God manifest in flesh. One of the great purposes of the Lord taking the condition of manhood was to show men how they should live for the pleasure of God. So the quality of dependence was seen in perfection in that blessed One.
My impression is that God is teaching us through circumstances to be dependent persons. I think the circumstances in which we are found, assembly-wise particularly, are ordered of God in view of teaching us to be dependent. You take an occasion like this—most of us are just feeble persons, not rightly able to fill out the idea of what is prophetic, but as found in the spirit of dependence and cast upon God. He brings in a word to encourage us and to stimulate us so that the character of manhood that was seen in Christ might mark us. This, we know, is God’s great thought for us.
As we come on to the end of the dispensation, God in His great love and grace is using circumstances to teach us. I remember, as a young man, when I first came among brethren, I heard the older brethren speak of the ministry of circumstances,
and I think God is largely reaching His and that way. We can hardly understand the present time in which we are found; a time in which what we were accustomed to and recognised as being strong and reliable, has now become, outwardly, a splintered condition. Yet, as we have often been reminded, God’s thoughts have not changed; He is the same God; His plans have not changed; His love is unchanged, and He is going through to completion with all that He ever had in mind. But God is bent on teaching us, through circumstances, to be dependent persons.
We see the idea of dependence in the portion of the Psalm we have read. I am not saying that this is all that is meant, but I think it enters into the thought of looking up. The psalmist was not self-centred, he is not engaged with his own circumstances at this point, but is prepared to address God and look up. Let us look up, dear brethren. As we look up we find that God is a great encourager of His people. As we look abroad in the world circumstances are distressing; but as we look up we get our eyes on an order of things which is perfectly intact.
The psalmist would have this in his heart. He learned it through experience—it is a psalm of David. David was one who had outstanding experience with God. So he says, “Jehovah, in the morning shalt thou hear my voice; in the morning will I address myself to thee, and will look up”.
May we be encouraged to look up and be marked increasingly by this wonderful spirit of dependence. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Brooklyn, N.Y.
9 September 1974