hat this is _necessarily_ to be a mere fleeting shadow, which is hardly
to last an hour, but is _necessarily_ to be exhausted ere the next breath
of trial or temptation comes? Does He mock our longing by acting as I
have seen an older person act to a child, by accepting some trifling gift
of no intrinsic value, just to please the little one, and then throwing
it away as soon as the child's attention is diverted? Is not the taking
rather the pledge of the keeping, if we will but entrust Him fearlessly
with it? We give Him no opportunity, so to speak, of proving His
faithfulness to this great promise, because we _will_ not fulfil the
condition of reception, believing it. But we readily enough believe
instead all that we hear of the unsatisfactory experience of others! Or,
start from another word. Job said, 'I know that Thou canst do
everything,' and we turn round and say, 'Oh yes, everything _except_
keeping my will!' Dare we add, 'And I know that Thou canst not do that'?
Yet that is what is said every day, only in other words; and if not said
aloud, it is said in faithless hearts, and God hears it. What _does_
'Almighty' mean, if it does not mean, as we teach our little children,
'able to do _everything'?_

We have asked this great thing many a time, without, perhaps, realizing
how great a petition we were singing, in the old morning hymn, 'Guard my
first springs of thought and will!' That goes to the root of the matter,
only it implies that the will has been already surrendered to Him, that
it may be wholly kept and guarded.

It may be that we have not sufficiently realized the sin of the only
alternative. Our wills belong either to self or to God. It may seem a
small and rather excusable sin in man's sight to be self-willed, but see
in what a category of iniquity God puts it! (2 Pet. ii. 10). And
certainly we are without excuse when we have such a promise to go upon
as, 'It is God that worketh in you both to _will_ and to do of His
pleasure.' How splendidly this meets our very deepest
helplessness,--'worketh in you to _will!_' Oh, let us pray for ourselves
and for each other, that we may know 'what is the exceeding greatness of
His power to usward who believe.' It does not say, 'to usward who fear
and doubt;' for if we will not believe, neither shall we be established.
If we will not believe what God says He can do, we shall see it with our
eyes, but we shall not eat thereof. 'They _could_ not enter in because of
unbe