|
|
|
God is an Infinite Sovereign During a difficult and traumatic year (1874), when he had seriously injured his back and had many lonely hours in which to think and pray, Hudson Taylor wrote these unusually challenging words – even for him. He was forty-two at the time, but the meditation, written in his own hand, was only found after his death. As Jim Broomhall has observed, the words ‘opened a window on his soul, on the true Hudson Taylor who wanted to be like Christ, cost what it might.’ ‘If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not allow you to follow other Christians; and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things that He will not let you do. Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires and work schemes to carry out their schemes, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent. Others may brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to say any such thing; and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works. Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege (the right) of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury. The Lord will let others be honoured and put forward, and keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory which can be produced only in the shade. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will let you work and toil on without (others) knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, he will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words or feelings or for wasting your time, over which other Christians never seem distressed. So make your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own and He may not explain to you a thousand things that may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. He will take you at your word and when you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that He will not let you say or do. Settle it forever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are in the secret heart pleased and delighted over the peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.
|
|
|
