If you had peeped through the fence of an old-fashioned garden one summer day, you would have seen a small boy and girl engaged in what appeared to be a very funny game.
They were running with all their might, arms outstretched, along a narrow path lined with currant bushes, and then creeping back with eyes on the ground, apparently searching for something.
What could the game be? Well, it was not a game at all. The fact was, Grannie had given them strict injunctions not to pick the currants, so they were just shaking them off the bushes! Perhaps they did not consider that was disobedience. What do you think? They thought their Grannie was a cross old lady and they did not love her. Probably Grannie had much to bear that little people did not understand. If they had loved and trusted her it would have made all the difference.
Another boy I know, used to be left alone with a younger brother, sometimes for a whole evening while mother went out. Of course there were certain things they were told not to do, and when the younger boy wanted to do the forbidden thing Jack would say, “No. Mum said we were not to do it, and Mum knows best.” You see Jack loved and trusted his mother.
I wonder if you sometimes find it a bore to read your Bible and to pray, and to do what you know to be right; it all seems such a trouble! I think I can tell you why. It is because you love yourself better than you love the Lord Jesus. Love would make all the difference! Oh, if only I could make you see how very much He loves you. He left His home in heaven to come down and die on the cross, to suffer for your sins—in your place. “He was wounded for our transgressions.” Isa. 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5). How He longs to be your Friend! if you thought of all that, I think you would say, as I heard a little girl once say, “You couldn’t help loving Him.” Then your prayers would be just talking to Him, and the Bible would be His voice talking-to you.
That little question of three words, that the Lord Jesus asked Peter so many years ago by the Sea of Galilee, has come ringing down through the ages, so gentle and loving, but oh, so searching!
“He did it for me; He did it for me,
A sinner as guilty as ever could he;
Oh how I love Him, now that I see
He suffered, He died, and He did it for me.
ML 04/30/1939