[59] If He
were free to pick you and me up like that, out of these surroundings,
congenial and pleasant, and set us down where we had no thought of going,
and never would have gone of our own choice, and we sing as we are picked
up, _and_ keep on singing where we find ourselves amidst the uncongenial
perhaps, the strange, the unprecedented and hard,--_if_ He were free to
control like that these days, there would be a present-day Pentecost
beside which the Acts-Pentecost was but the beginnings of the throbbings
of power.

There are some peculiarities of this "Follow Me" road here. There comes a
strangely new sense of proportion. As you follow close up behind the Man
ahead, you will grow _smaller_, and He will grow _larger_. No, that's not
an accurate statement; you won't _grow_ any smaller, you will only find
out how small you are. He won't grow any larger, you will simply be
finding out, and then finding out more, how large He is. It'll seem
strange to most of us, finding out our real size, or lack of the size we
always supposed we were. But it will come with a great awing,
heart-subduing sense, to find how marvellous in size this great Man is;
and yet He is our brother, as well as so immensely more.

You come to find out that power, that thing that used to be so much talked
about, and defined, and yet chiefly wondered about, that power is a matter
of position. The man close in behind the Lord Jesus doesn't need to be
concerned about power. In fact he isn't concerned about it, only concerned
with keeping close in touch. All the rest comes without our being
concerned. It comes from him, the Man ahead. There is far more power, the
very power of God, softly flowing and flooding its way in and through and
out, than you are ever conscious of. Others will know more of the power
than you. You are thinking about the Man ahead, keeping in touch, pleasing
Him. Obedience has become a new word to you. It's the music of keeping
step, keeping step with Him.

Have you noticed how much the current of the stream will do for you if you
are out in a row-boat? All you need to do is to keep up enough motion to
hold the boat within the sweep of the current. Then your chief task is
_steering_. You're not concerned about power; only about the steering.
There's more power in the current than you can ever use. Your one concern
is to keep out of the shallows and sucking side-eddies, away from snag and
rock, and _in the current._ The power's in