My roommate recently read Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret. One Saturday morning, she was very excited about something she had read, so she passed it on to me. It blessed me so much that I would also like to pass it on to you. The following is a letter that Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, wrote to his sister.
So many thanks for your dear, long letter ... I do not think you have
written me such a letter since our return to China. I know it is with
you as with me - you cannot - not you will not. Mind and body will not
bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain
amount of work.
As to work - mine was never so plentiful, so responsible or so
difficult, but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or
more has been, perhaps, the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a
little of what the Lord has done for my soul. I do not know how far I
shall be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing
new or strange or wonderful - and yet, all is new!
Perhaps I may make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well,
dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past,
feeling the need personally and for our Mission of more holiness, life,
power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest.
I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to
God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word
more diligently, sought more time for meditation - but all without
avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed
me.
I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I
could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my
eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying,
and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget
Him. Then one's nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations
to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the
more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and
failure, lack of power. To will was indeed "present with me," but how to
perform I found not.
Then came the question, is there no rescue? Must it be thus to the
end - constant conflict, and too often defeat? How could I preach with
sincerity that, to those who receive Jesus, "to them gave he power to
become the sons of God" (i.e. Godlike) when it was not so in my own
experience? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker
and to have less power against sin; and no wonder, for faith and even
hope were getting low. I hated myself, I hated my sin, yet gained no
strength against it. I felt I was a child of God. His Spirit in my heart
would cry, in spite of all, "Abba, Father." But to rise to my
privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless.
I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually
attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. There was nothing I so
much desired as holiness, nothing I so much needed; but far from in any
measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my
grasp, until hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that -
perhaps to make heaven the sweeter - God would not give it down here. I
do not think that I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew
I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and
strength. Sometimes I almost believed that He would keep and uphold me;
but on looking back in the evening - alas! there was but sin and failure
to confess and mourn before God.
I would not give you the impression that this was the only experience
of those long, weary months. It was too frequent state of soul, and
that towards which I was tending, which almost ended in despair. And
yet, never did Christ seem more precious; a Saviour who could and would
save such a sinner! ... And sometimes here were seasons not only of
peace but of joy in the Lord; but they were transitory, and at best
there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in
bringing this conflict to an end!
All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed,
but the practical question was - how to get it out. He was rich truly,
but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there
was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it into my
puny little branch was the question. As gradually light dawned, I saw
that faith was the only requisite - was the hand to lay hold on His
fullness and make it mine. But I had not this faith.
I strove for faith, but it would not come; I tried to exercise it,
but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up
in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Saviour, my guilt and
helplessness seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles
compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not
or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief
was I felt the damning sin of the world; yet I indulged in it. I prayed
for faith, but it came not. What was I to do?
When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from
dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit
of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had
never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same
sense of failure but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from
memory):
"But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."
As
I read, I saw it all! "If we believe not, he abideth faithful." I
looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He
had said, "I will never leave thee."
"Ah, there is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him.
I'll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me- never to
leave me, never to fail me?" And dearie, He never will.
Nor was this all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the Vine
and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my
soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the
fullness out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but
that I am a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine
is not the root merely, but all- root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves,
flowers, fruit. And Jesus is not that alone - He is soil and sunshine,
air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed,
wished for or needed. Oh, the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that
the eyes of your understanding too may be enlightened, that you may know
and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.
Oh, my dear Sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a
risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ! Think what in
involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and
your left poor? or your head be well fed while your body starves?
Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a
customer, "It was only your hand, not you that wrote that check?"; or "I
cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself?" No more can
your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus
(i.e. not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are
His, His members) so long as we keep within the limits of Christ's
credit - a tolerably wide limit! If we ask for anything unscriptural, or
not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do
that. But "if we ask anything according to his will ... we know that we
have the petitions that we desired of him."
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than
another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am
no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is
able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter
where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider that for
me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the
most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant
whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most
expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and
brings me his purchases. So, if God should place me in serious
perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great
difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial,
much strength? No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the
emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me
and dwells in me.
And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I
have been! I wish I could tell you about it, instead of writing. I am no
better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving
to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ - aye, and risen too! And
now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I
live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
...
And now I must close. I have not said half I would, nor as I would,
had I more time. May God give you to lay hold on these blessed truths.
Do not let us continue to say, in effect, "Who shall ascent into heaven?
(that is, to bring Christ down from above)." In other words, do not let
us consider Him as far off, when God has made us one with Him, members
of His very body. Nor should we look up on this experience, these
truths, as for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God,
and no one can dispense with them without dishonoring the Lord. The only
power for deliverance from sin or for true service is Christ.
. . .
"But are you always conscious of abiding in Christ?" Mr.
Taylor was asked many years later.
"While
sleeping at night," he replied, "did I cease to abide in your home
because I was unconscious of the fact? We should never be conscious of
not abiding in Christ."
