| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 5 |
Page 5 |
There are those who long for a beautiful life, for a transformed character, but it seems they never can attain to such renewal, they are so full of faults and blemishes. But if they begin to follow Christ, starting with the little fragment of Christ-likeness which their hands can pick up, God will help them, and they will grow at last into rich beauty of soul. Get the victory over the one temptation of the hour, and that will be the first thread in a web of complete victoriousness. Get one little line of loveliness into your disposition, and that will be the beginning of a spirit which at last will include, “whatsoever things are lovely.” For a web begun God will send the thread.
There is a beautiful Eastern story of a child walking beside the sea, who saw a bright spangle lying in the sand. She stooped down and picked it up, and found it was attached to a fine thread of gold. As she drew this out of the sand there were other bright spangles on it. She drew up the gold thread, and wound it about her neck, and around her head and her arms and body, until from head to foot she was covered with the bright threads of gold, and sparkled with the brilliance of the silver spangles. So it is when we lift out of God’s word an ornament of beauty to put into our life. We find that other fragments of loveliness, all bound together on the golden chain of love, and are attached to the one we have taken up. Then as we draw up the chain and twine it about our neck, and weave it into a web to make a garment for our soul, we find that it is endless. Infinite as God himself is the abundance of the lovely things that we may draw out of the treasury of his grace to deck our life with beauty. “For a web begun God sends the thread.”
This same law applies in the learning of all life’s lessons. The divine teaching is never wanting; but we must ever begin the lesson with the little we know. We must take the one step that is plain to us, and then God will make plain the next step for us, and the next, and the next. We must not demand to know all the way before we will set out. We must trust Christ, and go on, even in the dark. We must never falter when there seems to be no path; as we go on it will open. As we do the will of God we shall know the teaching. When we begin the web, God will send the threads to weave it to the beautiful ending.
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