blessed. In prayer, as nowhere else, we realize His presence, and out from the place of prayer, anointed and refreshed by His presence, we come forth feeling that the life of the Lord has really touched our souls. This, then, is the blessedness of communion — that in communion we really, as Christ says, drink His spiritual life. You may say it is mystical. True, all life is mystical, nor can we understand it. But you know it is a fact; you know that your own soul is quickened and re freshed by communion, and Christ interprets that quickening when He says that it is His life, the life of His Spirit, that thus touches and refreshes us. In Revelation 1:10 we read: “ I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard a . . . voice.” W hy did John hear the voice? Because he was in the Spirit. Because John was in the place of communion, the place of waiting upon God, and because being in the Spirit, anoint ed with the Spirit, the Spirit of God who takes of the things of God and reveals them, unto us, could show them unto John. It is in the place of prayer and the place of communion that the Spirit of God is able to show us the things of God. “ I was in the Spirit,” and— “ I heard a voice.” Do we not often lack the knowledge of God’s will? And is it not because we do not put ourselves into that atmosphere in which the Spirit of God alone can reveal Himself; be cause our spiritual ears are not at tuned by communion to hear the voice by which the Spirit of God would speak to us? Do we not miss much of the revelation of God’s will because we are not in the place above all other places where God reveals that will— the place of pray er, the place of communion? We cannot hear the voice because we do not shut ourselves apart in the only place where we can hear it. On the shores of Lake Huron, long ago, a little group of us were standing on the dock waiting the arrival of the steamer. All about us was a babel of voices. Presently the young clerk said: “ Come into the fish house.” (It was a fishing village and there was a little ware house where they packed their fish.) W e went in with him and we
shut the door and he said: “ Listen!” As we stood there we could plainly hear the sound of the approaching boat — the peculiar intermittent beating of the paddles of a side- wheel steamer. Then we walked out of the door to the wharf where the people were talking, and the sound of the approaching steamer vanished. Again with a friend we went into the stillness. There were no voices about to distract, or disturb, or break the Three Circles A pious writer has observed that there is a threefold circle of divine providence. The "outermost circle” includes all the sons of men: heath ens, Mohammedans, Jews and Christians. He causes His sun to rise upon them all. He gives them rain and fruitful seasons. He pours ten thousand benefits upon them and fills their hearts with food and gladness. With an "interior circle” He encompasses the whole visible Christian Church; all that name the name of Christ. He has an addi tional regard to these and a nearer attention to their welfare. But the "innermost circle” of His provi dence encloses only the invisible Church of Christ; all real Christians, wherever dispersed in all corners of the earth; all that worship God (of whatever denomination they are) in spirit and in truth. He keeps them as the apple of an eye: He hides them under the' shadow of His wings. And it is to these in particular that our Lord says, "Even the hairs of your head are all num bered.” — John Wesley silence, and there we could distinct ly hear the approaching steamer. W e went out and sat down upon the wharf, and in a few minutes the smoke from her funnels arose above the island. “What a lesson!” we thought. When we get alone in the chamber of communion with God, we can hear the voice of God; God can reveal His mind to us as nowhere else. But we miss that mind and we miss that guidance and we fail to hear that voice be cause of the hubbub and distraction of life. W e are in surroundings where the Spirit, who speaks with a
still, small voice, cannot make known to us His will. Who of us is not familiar with this fact of the outflashing of truth upon the mind in or after prayer? Is there a man who has ever prayed for guidance and has not been con scious that this guidance came in or after prayer? Something would flash upon us, some word of God, some incident in our life that would suddenly open to us the guidance we wanted and say to us: “ This is the path; walk ye in it.” And when we came to find out where that guidance came, it was in prayer, or after prayer. It is in communion that God flashes upon us the light of His own will, the revelation of His own mind. W e remember meeting a friend, after his return from South Africa, where he had been visiting one known the world over for his close walk with his Lord. “What is the secret of his great power?” His re ply was “ Communion. He seems al ways to be in communion with God.” He said: “ I will illustrate: When I went to see him, a minister from this country handed me a New Testament saying: ‘W ill you ask M r .---------- to write a sentiment in that Testament for me?’ After I had been there a few days I stated the request of the ministerial broth er. Mr. : ■■'- took the New Test ament and said: ‘Well, I must go aside awhile.’ He walked over into the comer of the room and sat down in an alcove, waiting on the Lord. Then I saw him write, and when he came back to me the verse on the flyleaf of the Testament was: ‘The Son can do nothing of him self, but what he seeth the Father do.’ I took that book home, and by the grace of God that minister’s life was well nigh transformed from that simple verse— ‘The Son can do nothing of Himself.’ ” “ Ah,” we thought, “ there is the secret. W e would have taken the book and written down the first sentence which came into our mind, but this man who knows the Lord as few men do, and knows the mind of the Lord as revealed in commun ion and prayer, went apart to get that mind. Then when he wrote the sentence it was the Lord’s sent ence and went home to the heart and the life of the man who re ceived it. God help us to wait in
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The King's Business/July 1958
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