off His power to work this miracle into a distant future. How
hopeless the naked wood of a fruit tree would look to us in February
if we had never seen the marvel of springtime! Yet the heavenly bloom
bursts straight out, with hardly an intermediate step of new growth.

Look again at a flowering rush. The crest breaks forth from
nothingness--out of the lifeless-seeming pith come crowding the
golden brown blossoms, till there is hardly "room to receive" them.
What more do we need for our souls than to have this God for our
God?

Once allow the manifestation of His grace in these poor hearts of
ours to be a miracle, and there is no need to defer it vaguely. How
many of the wonders wrought by Christ on earth lay in concentrating
the long processes of nature into a sudden act of power. The sick
would, many of them, have been healed by degrees in the ordinary
course of things; the lapse of years would have brought about the
withering of the fig-tree; the storm would have spent itself in few
hours. The miracle in each case consisted in the slow process being
quickened by the Divine breath, and condensed into a moment.

Cannot we trust Him for like marvels in our souls? There, too, "a day
is with the Lord as a thousand years." There is no needs be on His
part that He should prolong this first act of makings us holy over
the rest of our lives. A miracle--a wonder--is all that we need, and
"He is the God, that doeth wonders." Satan is quite content that we
should have faith for future sanctification, just as he was content
that we should have faith for future salvation. It is when the soul
rises to "here and now" that he trembles.

Whatever is the next grace for your soul, can you believe for its
supply at once, straight out from the dry, bare need? Christ's
process is very simple and very swift: "Whatsoever things ye desire,
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

And not only with the barrenness of our souls can God deal with His
quickening breath, but with our difficulties as well: with those
things in our surroundings that seem the most unfavourable.

See this bit of gorse-bush. The whole year round the thorn has been
hardening and sharpening. Spring comes: the thorn does not drop off,
and it does not soften; there it is, as uncompromising as ever; but
half-way up appear two brown furry balls, mere specks at first, that
break at last--straight out of last year's thorn--into a blaze of
fr