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The Path Ahead  A path lies within our reach, that makes the ordinary Christian life look cold and colourless by contrast; a path leading even beyond that consecration in its lower sense, for this latter may be very subjective in tone, and may hold out the way of obedience chiefly as a means of rest and victory. It is to many of us a distinctly fresh life when God's Spirit leads us to the objective side, lifting our gaze from the road beneath our feet to the form of him who goes before, and riveting it there by his radiant beauty... Then the measure of the sunshine and shadow of our days will be simply in the shining or the veiling of his face. Nothing on earth will make up for the slightest dimming of that light; nothing will really matter that leaves it untouched. *** You may grow so to follow His voice that even your thoughts will be brought "into captivity to the obedience of Christ." This bondage is perfect freedom, for we desire, He and we, only one and the same thing, and the true heartlove makes it all joy to follow, even if the path is narrow and rough. *** It is only as we go into a life of
surrender that the blessed joy of pouring out to him
our costly things dawns upon us. This giving
sets free a spring of conscious love and the love,
in its turn, inspires to fresh giving; and though
the pain involved is still pain, such a strange
sweetness becomes interwoven with it that we wonder
whether heaven can be perfect without the
possibility of suffering loss for him. To
quicken the dead is the divinest of all divine
prerogatives. We creatures say, 'While there is life
there is hope,' but our Creator will never suffer
himself to be so limited. He deliberately delayed
until the child was dead, for the faith of Jairus
must know him as the God who quickeneth the dead,
and with Lazarus he deliberately stayed away until
death had established its reign, so that Martha and
Mary might know him as resurrection life. So the
first answer to many prayers may, therefore, be the
reign of death. The last spark of life may be
quenched and faith and hope left alone with the dead
- and with the God who raises the dead. Do not be
dismayed if the first answer to some of your prayers
is a revelation, not of the power of God to make
alive, but of his might to slay every hope outside
of himself.  Index of Lilias
Trotter's Writings and Artwork |
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