“Aunt Affy, _how_ have you learned to be so sure about things? You remind me of another thing Dr. Parkhurst says: ‘A Christian has more than the natural resources of thought and action.’”
“So we have. I knew nothing but that God cared for me. And I was eager, impetuous, impatient, wilful, eager for him to walk my way, in the way I should tell him about. It was years and years before his Word became to me the delight, the plain command, warning, rebuke, comfort, it is to-day. But I studied night and day with my longing heart; and he blessed every natural longing; he took not one away; he took each into his keeping and blessed it.”
“Does it take years?” faltered Marion. “I want to learn something to-day.”
“You may learn something to-day; you cannot learn all to-day. Yesterday I opened my Bible to a passage dated thirty years ago; I remember the night I marked it; I was staggered, dismayed at something that had happened to me, something that I thought God would never let happen. I read through tears; I was comforted although the words meant little to me; I was comforted as a child is comforted, snug in its mother’s arms, when the mother does not speak one word. Yesterday, being in a strait again, I read these same marked words; again they were dull and dry; I asked God to tell me what he meant.”
“Thirty years ago did you ask him to tell you?”
“No, I did not think of that. I thought I would be comforted some other way. I had not grown up to the understanding of to-day. You know there’s a _natural_ growing up to understanding God’s words. It took the happenings of these thirty years to make me understand; God worked through them. He makes us grow through the sunshine and rain of his happenings. God has to wait for our slow growing. (And I wish to impress upon you just here, that unless you read and remember and understand the Bible stories you cannot expect to find the lessons for your own life. Superficial reading will not bring out the points; one of his ways of teaching is through the natural method of your own study and memory.)
“‘Therefore they inquired of the Lord further.’ That further helped me through a hard time. The story is this: God had chosen a king for his people, told Samuel all about it, and sent him to pour the anointing oil upon his head and to kiss him; and now when Samuel called the people together at Mizpeh, and caused all the tribes to come near to choose a king for them, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken, then the family in Benjamin, then Saul, the son of Kish, thus confirming the Lord’s choice and Samuel’s mission in the anointing, and then the most astounding thing happened. Saul, the chosen of the Lord, the young man whom the Judge of Israel had anointed and kissed, could not be found. What would you think if you believed that God had bidden you do something, and had confirmed it in such a special, satisfying, convincing manner, and then suddenly you could go no further—it was all taken out of your hands. The prophet sought for Saul and could not find him. Would you not be tempted to say—would you not really say to yourself, and to the Lord, I have been mistaken; I went ahead to do God’s bidding in all the confidence of my faith, and before all the people I am ashamed; it is proven that God did not bid me, that my faith was presumptive, for the time has come to go on, and I cannot go on—the work is not to be done. It looks as if I had deceived myself; God has allowed me to believe something that is not true. Could anything be more heart-breaking? How could God treat you like that when you believed him so, and were so in earnest? Would you have the heart to inquire further? They asked if the man should yet come hither. Samuel had done all he could. The Lord answered, telling them plainly where the man had hidden himself. Oh, these hidden people, the Lord knows about. He is in all their hiding places. Suppose Samuel had stopped, ashamed before the people, angry, humiliated before the Lord. There had to be this last trial of faith. At the last eager, sure moment God may have a new test of faith for us. Is there a hiding place in one of your last, sure moments? Do not fail before it. God’s will is hidden away in it.”