A gentleman relates how, as a boy, he was accustomed to taking long rides with his father through wild, forest country. He drank in with delight the beauties of nature, was gladdened by the fine exhilarating mornings, and was refreshed by the cool of evening.
The father had a very keen sense of smell, and could detect various locations by their odors alone. Although not expecting to attain to his father’s power of discernment in this particular sense, the son did ask himself the question: “If I enjoy so much, mere glimpses of nature in all its simplicity, cannot I increase my pleasure with longer looks?”
By experimenting he found out that he reached the fullest appreciation and keenest pleasure, in the exercise of any particular sense sight, hearing, smell, by “merely shutting out all other impressions, feelings, or thoughts, and concentrating full attention upon what he saw or heard at that instant.
Dear Christian reader, will not the same be true in connection with the development of our spiritual sense in the study of God’s Word and communion with our blessed Lord? The more we can exclude thoughts of “time and sense,” the more deeply will we enter into the beauties of Christ, discovering the “hidden treasures” that are to be found in Him alone.
There are duties and cares that demand some of our time and attention. There are also occupations and diversions with which we can dispense, if we are willing to give them up for something better.
Let us more and more do away with those things which are unnecessary and unimportant in the light of God’s Word, giving that precious time to the Lord Himself, both in communion and in service. Our time as well as our bodies, belongs to Him
O for a fuller knowledge
Of Him Whose Name we bear;
O for a deeper longing
For Him Whose throne we’ll share,
When the riches of His glory
Shall gladden every face,
And our hearts will feast forever
On the riches of His grace.