I was in Egypt some years ago, and, among other forms of service, held some meetings for soldiers. One night I got into conversation with a big Sergeant in a Highland regiment. He was just as bright and shining for the Lord as it is possible for a saved soldier to be. I said: “How were you brought to Christ?” He replied: “There is a Private in the same Company who had been converted in Malta before the regiment came on to Egypt. We gave that fellow an awful time. The devil got possession of me, and I made that man’s life a positive burden to him. Of course, I did not know then, as I know now, that it was the devil who had got hold of me, and was making me persecute him so. Well, one night, an awfully wet night, he came in from sentry-go. He was very tired, and very wet, and before getting into bed he got down to pray. My boots were heavy with wet and mud, and I let him have one on one side of his head and the other on the other, and he just went on with his prayers. Next morning I found those boots beautifully polished by the side of my bed. That was his reply to me, and it just broke my heart, and I was saved that day.”
That soldier had learned to recognize a God-made opportunity, and as we live in close relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ we, too, shall acquire that intuitive faculty which will enable us to see an opportunity and to embrace it. It may not always be the opportunity for speech. Sometimes it is an opportunity for silence, and I have known silence to be as effective a witness for the Lord Jesus as ever speech could be.
“For Christ’s sake,” should be whispered in our hearts at the hardest of our duties and along the darkest of our way.