Feeding in the Ways by Alexander Maclaren, D. D.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 28, 1902

Feeding in the Ways

By Alexander Maclaren, D. D.

“THEY shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.” Isa. 49:9.

This is part of the prophet’s glowing description of the return of the captives, under the figure of a flock fed by a great shepherd. Whilst, then, this prophecy is originally intended simply to suggest the abundant supplies that were to be provided for the band of exiles as they came back from Babylon, there lie in it great and blessed principles which belong to the Christian pilgrimage, and the flock that follows Christ.

They who follow him, to begin with, shall find in the dusty paths of common life, and in all the smallnesses and distractions of daily duty, nourishment for their spirits. Do you remember what Jesus said? “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” We, too, may have the same meat to eat which the world knows not of, and he will give that hidden manna to the combatant as well as “to him that overcometh.” In the measure in which we “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,” in that measure do we find—like the stores of provisions that arctic explorers come upon, cachéd for them—food in the wilderness, and nourishment for our highest life in our common work.

That is a great promise, and it is a great duty. It is a promise the fulfillment of which is plainly guaranteed by the very nature of the case. Religion is meant to direct conduct, and the smallest affairs of life are to come under its imperial control; and the only way by which a man can get any good out of his Christianity is by living it. It is when he sets to work on the principles of the gospel, that the gospel proves itself to be a reality in his blessed experience. It is when he does the smallest duties from great motives, that these great motives are strengthened by exercise, as every motive is. If you wish to weaken the influence of any principle upon you, do not work it out, and it will wither and die. If a man would grasp the fullness of spiritual sustenance which lies in the gospel of Jesus Christ, let him go to work on the basis of the gospel, and he “shall feed in the ways,” and common duties will minister strength to him, instead of taking strength from him.

The food which God gives us is not only to be taken by faith, but it has to be made ours more abundantly by work. Saint Augustine said, in another connection, “Believe, and thou hast eaten.” Yes, that is blessedly true, but it needs to be supplemented by “they shall feed in the ways,” and their work will bring them nourishment.

But this is a great duty as well as a great promise. How many of us Christian people have but little experience of getting nearer to God, because of our daily occupations? To by far the larger number of us, in by far the greater space of time in our lives, our daily work is a distraction, and tends to obscure the face of God to us, and to shut us out from many of the storehouses of sustenance by which a quiet, contemplative faith is refreshed. If you go to your countinghouses and shops, and I go to my desk and books, and forget the Shepherd, then there is no grass by the wayside for such sheep. But if we subject our wills to him, and if in all that we do we are trying to refer to him, and are working in dependence on him, and for him, then the poorest work, the meanest, the most entirely secular, will be a source of Christian nourishment and blessing.

We have to settle for ourselves whether we shall be distracted, torn asunder by pressure of cares and responsibilities and activities, or whether, far below the agitated surface which is ruffled by the winds and borne along by the tidal wave, there will be a great central depth, still but not stagnant—whether we shall be fed or starved in our Christian life by the pressure of our worldly tasks. The choice is before us. “They shall feed in the ways,” if the ways are Christ’s ways, and he is at every step their Shepherd.—Alexander Maclaren, D. D.