Our history is properly written in double columns—the one recounting the wilderness journey, and the other our heavenly progress. In the former we are learning dependence, in the latter it is possession. In the one I am learning Christ as the manna—how He sustains and succors me. His walk and steps on earth, all and each indicate to me how He will sustain me here. When He puts forth His own sheep, He goes before them. We are not called to any path here where Christ cannot sustain us, and He affords us the same grace which sustained Himself in our circumstances. He "set him on his own beast." The blessed Son of God has traversed the human pathway, depositing manna as small as coriander seed all along, and on every side, to meet the smallest as well as the greatest trials by the way. Never was our pathway trodden by such a One before. He has not only traversed it, but He has surmounted every difficulty therein, bequeathing to us the fragrance and power of His grace to conduct us along the same. Every rose has its manna on it, and every thorn too, so that we are preserved from the snare of the one and from the pain of the other. Hence, our journey here is called a race; we are sustained to run, and in dependence too, because there is nothing to rest in, so that as we grow in dependence, we run the better, but dependence is the great lesson of the wilderness.
The other side of our history is heavenly progress; it is with Christ Himself where He is. Your growth in power and joy is as you are occupied with Him. The first fruit is in heaven; the heir is there; and as I am consciously united to Him there, though not actually in possession, I enjoy Him who is the possessor; and hence the Spirit who unites me to Him is the earnest of the inheritance. There, there is no need, no thorn; it is all rest; it is not as He was in my path here, but as He is in Himself in His own peculiar blessedness that I learn Him. There it is rest-here it is a race. And I am to come forth from there as a strong man to run a race. There I know Him as my treasure better than the best thing here; and hence, though needing His succor all along the road here, yet I am giving up even the good things here, in order that I may freely and fully know Him as my gain-that I may win Christ.
In the race I am sustained by the manna; but as I enjoy Christ in heaven, the rose is eclipsed and the thorn is forgotten. If I drop the weight in order to run, I relinquish all that I have here; for where my treasure is, there will my heart be also. My need here calls out my dependence on Him; but His riches in glory give me independence here. As milestones mark the road, so do the wells of His mercy mark the stages here in the valley of the shadow of death. But we traverse it as those who know what it is to lie down in green pastures, and to be led by still waters. You are the racer and the rester. As the one, you are dependent on Him; as the other, you are independent of everything here, because so consciously enriched in and by Him. May you abound in both.