April 11: The Splendor of His Will

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 6
Listen from:
PH 3:20-21{Perhaps there is no point in which expectation has been so limited by experience as this. We believe God is able to do for us just so much as He has already done, and no more. We take it for granted a line must be drawn somewhere; and so we choose to draw it where experience ends, and faith would have to begin. Even if we have trusted and proved Him as to keeping our members and our minds, faith fails when we would go deeper and say, "Keep my will." And yet the only reason we have to give is, that though we have asked Him to take our will, we do not exactly find that it is altogether His, but that self-will crops up again and again. And whatever flaw there might be in this argument, we think the matter is quite settled by the fact that some whom we rightly esteem, and who are far better than ourselves, have the same experience, and do not even seem to think it right to hope for anything better. That is conclusive! And the result of this, as of every other faithless conclusion, is either discouragement and depression, or, still worse, acquiescence in an unyielded will, as something that cannot be helped. Now let us turn from our thoughts to God's thoughts. Verily, they are not as ours! He says He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Apply this here. We ask Him to take our wills and make them His. Does He or does He not mean what He says? And if He does, should we not trust Him to do this thing that we have asked and longed for, and not less but more? "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" "Hath He said, and shall He not do it?”
Her pencil, tracing feebly words that shall echo still,
Perchance some unknown mission may Joyously fulfill:
“I think I Just begin to see the splendor of God's will!”
For her, God's will was suffering, Just waiting, lying still;
Days passing on in weariness, In shadows deep and chill;
And yet she had begun to see the splendor of God's will.