| The Golden Gate of Prayer |
Chapter 9 |
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One thing, however, we must always remember, — the will of God is not revealed to us in a volume, but in single pages; the whole journey of our life is not charted for us in one great map, spread before our eyes at the beginning, — only one little stretch is shown to us at a time.
“Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.”
We need never be impatient to know our future; it is better that we be content to see just the next step and to take that, to know the next duty and do it. This is the way God makes known his will to us.
Thus it is that the will of God is to be done by us. It is to be the law of our life. All our conduct is to be moulded by it. All our dispositions are to be colored by it. Our character is to be built up by it. And the fabric thus reared is enduring, “For he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” It marks out our path through the world for us.
All our common task-work is God’s will for us, if we are doing the things God would have us do. We are not to divide our work into two sections, and say that one is God’s will for us-our spiritual exercises, our devotions, our moral choices, our distinctively Christian work, — and that the other is the sphere of our own will — the things which are secular. God’s will covers the whole of our life. It must rule in our business, in our home relations, in our social life, in our pleasures and amusements. There is no nook or cranny in our life, no byway, no secret corner, in which this divine will must not hold undisputed sway, if we are truly following Christ. Religion is not something which can be gathered into Sundays and church services, and shut out of week-days and the business and pleasure of one’s life. It claims all.
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