ith and works." We are considering how lilies grow,
and in a specific connection, namely, to discover the attitude of mind
which the Christian should preserve regarding his spiritual growth. That
attitude, primarily, is to be free from care. We are not lodging a plea
for inactivity of the spiritual energies, but for the tranquillity of
the spiritual mind. Christ's protest is not against work, but against
anxious thought; and rather, therefore, than complement the lesson by
showing the other side, we take the risk of still further extending the
plea in the original direction.

What is the relation, to recur again to analogy, between growth and work
in a boy? Consciously, there is no relation at all. The boy never thinks
of connecting his work with his growth. Work in fact is one thing and
growth another, and it is so in the spiritual life. If it be asked
therefore, Is the Christian wrong in these ceaseless and agonizing
efforts after growth? the answer is, Yes, he is quite wrong, or at
least, he is quite mistaken. When a boy takes a meal or denies himself
indigestible things, he does not say, "All this will minister to my
growth;" or when he runs a race he does not say, "This will help the
next cubit of my stature." It may or it may not be true that these
things will help his stature, but, if he thinks of this, his idea of
growth is morbid. And this is the point we are dealing with. His anxiety
here is altogether irrelevant and superfluous. Nature is far more
bountiful than we think. When she gives us energy she asks none of it
back to expend on our own growth. She will attend to that. "Give your
work," she says, "and your anxiety to others; trust me to add the cubits
to your stature." If God is adding to our spiritual stature, unfolding
the new nature within us, it is a mistake to keep twitching at the
petals with our coarse fingers. We must seek to let the Creative Hand
alone. "It is God which giveth the increase." Yet we never know how
little we have learned of the fundamental principle of Christianity till
we discover how much we are all bent on supplementing God's free grace.
If God is spending work upon a Christian, let him be still and know that
it is God. And if he wants work, he will find it there--in the being
still.

Not that there is no work for him who would grow, to do. There is work,
and severe work--work so great that the worker deserves to have himself
relieved of all that is superfluous during his task