POWER by Rev. A. D. Mink

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 9, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 19.

POWER.

By Rev. A. D. Mink

A LADY on whom I called the other day interested me by her account of a trip on the Great Eastern, forty years ago. The remarkable thing about it was that the voyage was full of discomfort, and the lives of the passengers endangered. Thinking it over, the reason was not hard to find; it was not that the ship was too big, but the engine too small. Men did not dream of cutting down the size, but bent themselves to the task of giving her more power. With the modern engine the same ship could navigate any sea.

So it is with our lives; we do not attempt tasks that are too large, but we fail in that the power is insufficient. The engine is too small. Even the storm of temptation is not removed; weather it we must, but God has promised us His abiding strength. We must not lead low-pressure lives if we would cross the sea. The power was as great forty years ago as now, but the difference was with man. He had not learned to utilize and apply it. We are not to pray to be taken out of the world, but to be kept in it. The difference between two lives, one of which rides the storm and the other is submerged, is not in the ocean, but in the men; better, in the resident power of grace in their hearts. The one tries to breast the waves with an engine far too small, the other takes God's triple-expansion power.

It is as true in the church. The difference between one that succeeds and does God's will, and another that fails, is not in the field, not in surrounding conditions, but in the dynamic. The ship oftentimes is run with an engine antiquated and weak. We can not watch a modern ocean greyhound wrestling with the storm without seeming to hear her say, "It is for this I am built." The tremendous power in the engine is a match for any sea. God does not desert us in the time of need, but the Spirit waits to empower the disciple for service. —Rev. A. D. Mink.