has
a bad mixture of stubborn warped human wills to deal with. With infinite
patience and skill and diplomacy and success too He is ever working at the
tangled skein of human life, through the human will.

It may help us here to remember that God has a first and a second will for
us: a first choice and a second. He always prefers that His first will
shall be accomplished in us. But where we will not be wooed up to that
height, He comes down to the highest level we will come up to, and works
with us there. For instance, God's first choice for Israel was that He
Himself should be their king. There was to be no human, visible king, as
with the surrounding nations. He was to be their king. They were to be
peculiar in this. But to Samuel's sorrow and yet more to God's, they
insisted upon a king. And so God gave them a king. And David the great
shepherd-psalmist-king was a man after God's own heart, and the world's
Saviour came of the Davidic line. God did His best upon the level they
chose and a great best it was. Yet the human king and line of kings was
not God's first will, but a second will yielded to because the first
would not be accepted. God is ever doing the best for human lives that can
be done through the human will.

His first will for our bodies, without doubt, is that there should be a
strong healthy body for each of us. But there is a far higher thing being
aimed at in us than that. And with keen pain to His own heart, He oft
times permits bodily weakness and suffering because in the conditions of
our wills only so can these higher and highest things be gotten at. And
where the human will comes into intelligent touch with Himself, and the
higher can so be reached, with great gladness and eagerness the bodily
difficulty is removed by Him.

There are two things, at least, that modify God's first will for us. First
of all the degree of our intelligent willingness that He shall have His
full sway. And second, the circumstances of one's life. Each of us is the
centre of a circle of people, an ever changing circle. If we be in touch
with Him God is speaking through each of us to his circle. Our experiences
with God: His dealings with us, under the varying circumstances are a part
of His message to that circle. God is trying to win men. It takes
marvellous diplomacy on His part. And God is a wondrous tactician.
But--very reverently--He is a needy God. He needs us to help Him, each in
his circle. We must be perfectly