OUR BEST THINKING FOR CHRIST.
In surrendering all to the Saviour we give him control of every power he has lent us. Here is one of the paradoxes of our faith. We give up all, yet we keep all to use for him. Some fail to apprehend this. Through weak judgment or from wrong teaching, they blunder; and others stumble over their mistakes. In complete submission to God there is an abnegation of reason and judgment that is very difficult. It is yet more difficult to understand, that, while we surrender our “memory, mind, and will,” we must make them do their very best work for our Master. Some, in their religious zeal, abnegate their common sense, and never quite resume it. Of such the Saviour says sorrowfully, “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” Intellectual pride is an almost certain snare to persons of a little more than average ability and culture. In their efforts to be thoroughly religious, they are apt to shy the old pitfall, and lean a little too far from it for straight, sensible walking. Just as if the mighty Redeemer could not save them from that danger! A touch of the old Romish asceticism, do you see? You have Latin and Greek, poetry, imagination, artistic taste. You made the most of them for Satan and self. Now you have given them to God. Will you wrap them in a napkin, and hide them away, when he has place and use for them in his work? You wonder why you cannot win your friends to this better life. It may be your piety is unlovely. They know you have these gifts. They have expected you to do nobly with them. But there you are, in your fearfulness, neglecting, cramping your talents and wasting your chances. God “uses the weak things,” to be sure; but any of his earthly children are weak enough, at their very best. He wants our money for building places of worship, scattering a pure literature, missionating pagans, at home and abroad. Dare we put it out of his reach, in savings-banks or real-estate? He wants business brains to plan church finances. Dare consecrated people invest his money with less skill and care than they use for their own? He makes the flowers grow; but he usually makes them grow best where a human brain studies out their laws of life, and a human hand helps them to moisture and proper soil. Christ wants the very best thoughts of the church, to use in toppling over false theories, in straightening theological tangles, in driving heart and voice and pen, to teach the ignorant, warn the unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, and to build up shapely Christian characters. Let us use our common sense for him. All “dove” and no “serpent,” we shall make poor work of it. Let us do our bravest, strongest thinking for our Master. If we keep close to him, we need have no fear of intellectual pride. The fullness of his great thoughts will make ours look little enough. The boundlessness of his great life will make ours seem small enough. “Thy self-upbraiding is a snare,
Though meekness it appears;
More humbling is it far for thee
To face the eternal years.
“Brave quiet is the thing for thee;
Chiding thy scrupulous fears:
Learn to be real from the thought
Of the eternal years.”
—Sel.