Extracts from Letters from G. V. W.
All turns- and hangs for us now on what He will work for the honor of His Son by the Holy Spirit down here, the scene, alas! of man's marrings and spoilings, misunderstandings and willfulness; yet it may be still of God's turning to His own praise and glory of the ruin of those, His children, who trust and hope in Him, their ruin notwithstanding.
I entirely agree with you as to the yearning over every one that has life. Christ died to gather together in one the children of God scattered abroad; Paul labored day and night thereunto; but the measure in which this truth really holds my soul is (alas!) the measure in which I am instant before God for them in prayer. This is a reality, and I have to measure and judge myself for it, and not to give credit to myself for thoughts and feelings which work no prayer before God. Another thing is to be thought of too (even if one be prayerful for all saints and careful for them), and that is, I think, what the Spirit is most about now. His love is perfect. He is occupied in New Zealand in clearing the foundation for avowed communion, and is diligently occupied with the altar, little known, being better known. " The altar " and " the walls " were in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah the forms which love to Israel occupied itself with in an Ezra and Nehemiah and the remnant to Jehovah in that day. ...
... Not that one's own little doings matter much; for truly it is never what I will do for the Lord and His people which is worth thinking of, but what will He do with me as to the name of the Son that is dear to Him. 'Tis a great system one gets into when thus Christ is all to us, and then, and then only, G. V. W. and J. G. D. drop into their own absolute littleness, made great by relationship to and in Him....
Conflict goes on around us and within us; this we prove daily. But the springs of it are higher up and lower down than we, so that we have to look upward to Him that is above them all, yea, above all spiritual wickedness in heavenly places, and around whom all the surging tides from beneath do but sweep to accomplish the good pleasure of His will....
I thank God that one's littleness in no wise turns God aside from us; but contrariwise, if we simply do what He gives us to do, He perfects His strength in our weakness....
I am consciously a poor thing in myself, physically as well as spiritually. But it is best of all to have all one's springs in Christ Jesus alone. The grace of God was from everlasting in His counsel about the Lord Jesus, and how big the field will be when the exceeding riches of His grace is ours. Now, ad interim, between the two, as God finds Christ enough for Him at all times and in all places, so we must learn to know and to be satisfied with having Himself as our portion and exceeding great reward. The contrast between Him and me, how great! He, never upbraiding, never looking at me or my circumstances apart from His own Father and His choice of me, and liking to do so, so unselfish; and I, so selfish that I have but little heart or mind to lose myself in Him, the plenitude of all that is blessed.
What a little globe this is for all the principles of eternal redemption and salvation to have been shown out upon! God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Satan, man, the world, a six thousand years' war, one thousand years of blessing yet to come, and all told out on this little globe! But oft the littleness of one thing enhances the greatness of another: "who for the sake of one bad apple damned all mankind." What a little root for so great fruit, in "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;" or in "What art thou, Lord?" "What wilt thou have me to do?" I find more and more that all business has to be begun and ended with the Lord. With Him, what is too little? What too great? I am persuaded we have to wait on the Lord about His coming, and the state of His people as being in that day; if they will welcome it, practically ready for it. I have no theory that I know of beyond this, that I hold it will be to His dishonor who has loved us and given Himself for us (that we might live alone to Him), if He were to come and find none actually and practically waiting for Him To our dishonor surely, but more than that, to His; and I use this oft in prayer to the Father.
God loves to bless. Why? Well, He is God, and God has a right to do as He likes; and He does like to bless through Jesus Christ His Son.
Never till we get down to see that the measure of sin, which alone is full and true, is the blood once shed on Calvary, can we be quietly patient in God's presence, learning of Him the beauty of Christ, who is our sin offering, anchor fixed within the veil, and hope; and how unlike to Him we are as yet, though all our judgment was borne by Him, and all His beauty is on us.