The 9th is where I've been and the 10th is how to get out.
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May 9th
Grasp Without Reach
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"Where there is no vision, the people cast of restraint." Proverbs xxix. 18 (R.V.)
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There is a difference between and ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man's conception of Deity may be used to justify his deliberate neglect of his duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of Justice and of mercy, therefore everything would be all right. I may have a right conception of God, and the may be the very reason why I do not do my duty. But wherever there is vision, there is also a life of rectitude because the vision imparts moral incentive.
Ideals may lull to ruin. Take stock of your self spiritually and see whether you have ideals only or if you have vision.
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"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's heaven for?"
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"Where there is no vision...." When once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless, we cast off certain restraints, we cast off praying, we cast off the vision of God is little things, and begin to act on our own initiative. If we are eating what we have out of our own hand, doing things on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we are on the downward path, we have lost the vision. Is our attitude today and attitude that springs form our vision of God? Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has ever done? Is there a freshness and vigour in our spiritual outlook?
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May 10th
Take the Initiative
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"Add to your faith virtue...." ("Furnish your faith with resolution.") (Moffatt.) 2 Peter i. 5.
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"Add" means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not make us walk aright. We have to do all that ourselves, we have to work out the salvation God has worked in. "Add" means to get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages it is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go.
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Beware of the tendency of asking the way when you know if perfectly well. (Ouch!) Take the initiative, stop hesitation, and take the first step. Be resolute when God speaks, act in faith immediately on what He says, and never revise your decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do a thing, you endanger your standing in grace. Take the initiative, take it yourself, take the step with your will now, make it impossible to go back. Burn you bridges behind you -- "I will write that letter"; "I will pay that debt." Make the thing inevitable.
We have to get into the habit of hearkening to God about everything, to form the habit of finding out what God says. If when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we know what the habit has been formed. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we are not.
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I am choosing to seek God and put my confidence in the living and enduring Word of God -- not because my feelings validate it, not because my life reflects it, but because "all men are like grass, and their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever." (1 Peter 1:24-25)
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