HOW TO LEAD A SPIRITUAL LIFE.
By Cuyler
How is the spiritual mind to be kept spiritual? Will a renewed heart “keep sweet” of itself; or will it tend back toward corruption again? Will grace live within us without watching? Will spirituality grow without tillage of the heart-garden? To these questions Christian experience says, No! Conversion brings a man into a new state—“all things have become new;” but yet there is a stiff undercurrent running toward the old state. No converted man, however thoroughly renewed by the Divine Spirit, will stay converted unless God watch over him and he watch over himself. Conversion is simply the turning of the heart from sin to the Saviour; and unless the heart hold fast to Christ, and Christ hold fast to it, that heart will drop away into self-indulgence, pride, unbelief, and besetting sins. Paul would not have remained Paul for four and twenty hours if divine power had not kept him. “Not I, but Christ that liveth in me.” “I can do all things—through Christ which strengtheneth me.” What are the essential things to maintain spiritual-mindedness? I. Prayer, of course, comes among the foremost. Not saying prayers; but praying. A dull, formal, monotonous repetition of devout phrases every night and morning puts the conscience to sleep, just as surely as a low, crooning tune puts a baby to sleep in a cradle. But genuine prayer is quite a different thing from that. It is the soul’s keeping the track open, and maintaining a constant intercourse with God. Prayer is just as vital a thing to my heart as are the water-pipes in my house that connect with the Ridgewood Reservoir. A double office belongs to the conduit-pipe of prayer; it serves at once as the inlet of grace, and as the outlet of gratitude. I thank God for what he gives; and I receive the gifts to be thankful for. And our prayers do not smell enough of the sweet, holy fragrance of gratitude. For a sinner to be anywhere out of perdition is a matter for thanksgiving; but to be actually on the highway to Heaven, with the love-light of Jesus’s face streaming on us, is enough to make our “feet to be like hind’s feet,” and to set us to leaping like the roe. “In everything give thanks.” Prayer, then, is the channel for gratitude and penitence to flow Godward; the channel for grace and strength to flow from him into our dry hearts. When the channel gets clogged up with doubts and unbelief, or gets frozen up with selfishness and indifference, the supplies stop, and death begins. Just as soon attempt to keep up a blooming and fruit-bearing piety without perpetual prayer, as to set your geraniums into full flower by locking them in a Greenwood vault. I have always observed that backslidings begin with a neglected closet and a neglected prayer-meeting. “Why don’t the water run in my house to-day?” I send for the plumber; and he says to me: “Friend, the connection is broken.” Woe to that professing Christian who has broken his connection with his God! I sometimes think of prayer as a celestial telegram. Our messages go upward with the speed of thought. The return of mercies flows downward with the promptness of divine love. Sometimes the answer anticipates the request. Sometimes the answer is delayed; then we can only wait. Sometimes it comes in a startling shock—like a death-message over the wires. But it is all right; God makes no mistakes. Faith says: “If I put myself in connection with the God of love, I must take just what his wisdom sends. Thy will be done.” Ah! there is something far worse than to receive dispensations of trial from yonder Father of lights. It is to have the telegraph of prayer so utterly out of order, through disuse, or so broken down, that all communication stops, and the soul is cut off from Heaven. But a healthy Christian’s spiritual telegraph is ever busy; it worketh by the electricity of love. Up into the All-hearing ear floweth the constant stream of confession, penitence, desire, gratitude, and petition; and downward cometh the “grace sufficient,” the strength equal to the day, the joys in the Holy Ghost. Then, brother, pray without ceasing. A true child of grace was never born dumb. II. The second essential to spirituality is watchfulness. “What I say unto you, I say unto all—Watch!” Christ knew perfectly well to whom he was talking. In coupling together prayer and self-watching, he married the sovereignty of God to the Christian’s free agency. Never yet have we seen the heart that could be trusted without oversight. It must be a close, weary, wakeful watch. If you were set to keep a bird sitting unfastened on the palm of your hand, you would know what is meant by keeping the heart with all diligence. Have the arm of godly resolution ready—ready to seize it the moment it attempts to fly away into sinful indulgence. Do not take off your eye one instant. The price of a spiritual life is “eternal vigilance.” The lusts of the flesh will steal silent marches on us; temper will start up like an unchained mastiff, and bite before we are aware; the unruly tongue gets loose; pride gets the reins; or some other besetting sin is on the move. “Wherefore I say unto all, Watch.” Watch the sly approaches of the tempter. Watch the thought-cradles in your own soul wherein the infant purposes are nursed. Watch over your own resolutions. Watch the leadings of God. Watch for opportunities to do good. Watch for the coming of your Master. While the Martha of your industry and your benevolence is busy within, let the Mary of your devout vigilance be ever on the lookout for the coming of your Lord. Blessed are those servants whom, when the Master cometh, he shall find watching! “Beyond the watching and the weeping,
Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
Beyond the sowing and the reaping
We shall be soon.
Love—rest—and home,
Sweet home!
Lord! tarry not, but come!”