“How is it that some Christians break down? How is it their needs are not met? How is it some get into confusion and perplexity?”
The answer to these questions is in many cases because they have got out of the path of God’s will. In that path we get full supplies. We do not carry resources with us: we must learn the secret of continual dependence on Him. We must be always receiving from Him.
It is like a waterwheel going round. What makes it go round? The water that went over it yesterday? No! The stream that may flow tomorrow? No! What then? The water passing over it just now. If that stops, the wheel stops. So we are dependent moment by moment.
Let me illustrate this. Some years ago, when I was a little boy, my father took me to India. I well remember many of the incidents of the journey. For instance, between Cairo and Suez—there was no railway or canal then—we had to travel a hundred miles over a dry, arid desert. But we had no provisions with us, no change of horses. We needed these things in such a long journey. How did we manage? There was a certain path marked out for us, and in that path provision was made for our needs all the way along. If we kept that path, we had stage by stage, refreshment, fresh horses and so on; but we had to keep the path, else we should have had no supplies.
So there is a path of the will of God for us, and in that path there is full provision.
Out of it we need not wonder if we do not find constant supplies. Remember, then, one great secret of success is to be learning more and more perfectly, how to be kept in the path of God’s will.
“Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path.” (Psa. 27:11).