A thin cloud of smoke was hovering over a
certain spot on the opposite side of the little
Swiss valley. Day after day it had been hanging
there, without increasing or diminishing. At
last I asked what it was. "Oh, it is a tree,"
they answered. "A wood-cutter lit his fire under
it a week ago to cook his dinner, and it has
been smoldering ever since." "But it will
spread, will it not?" "No, there is no flame, so
it cannot spread," was the answer.
It was damp with mists around it and with the
sap within it, so it smouldered on and nothing
happened. When we left a few days later, it was
still smouldering. "There is no flame, so it
cannot spread." The words have often rung in my
ears ever since.
May God send them on to ring in other ears too!
For if the hearts in England, where God's Fire
smoulders now were lit up into a flame, the glow
would be felt around this poor, dark, cold world
before long. It is such a cold, dark world to
the God who "so loved" it, that nothing but love
will meet His longing! The false religious
systems at their best are frozen still with
formalism and slavish fears. They are chilled
through and through with meaningless ceremonies
and silly superstitions, and a dull morality
with no power to make it workable...
Oh, the hugeness of the need - what can touch
it? These days of ours are slipping between our
fingers as it were, and their chances will soon
be over forever. The months that we still have
to live, even the youngest of us - how fast they
go by! What does Christ feel about the priceless
months that pass, like with our Swiss tree,
where nothing happens around the spot where we
stand? Nothing happens - is it so? There is no
flame so it cannot spread. Oh, the smouldering
lives and their possibilities! More sorrowful in
one way than the unlit souls around; for of all
the sad words of the tongue or pen, the saddest
are these - "it might have been."
First - It is not a question of doing more, but
of being more. If that Swiss tree had
given itself for just a few more moments to the
fire that was kindled in it, the outward results
would have been very different. A flame must
spread, but the tree would not let itself go.
The strong sap within it fought out the battle;
the tree held itself carefully back, and it
saved its life. The autumn storms were coming
on, and I daresay that the tree is safe and
stands to this day.
The autumn storms are coming on the world too,
and the chances of spreading a fire round us are
dwindling day by day. If we will save our lives
for ourselves, save our money to spend on our
own pleasures, save our time for our own
interests and pursuits, save our homes from the
sorrow of a parting - well, if we will, we must.
But remember, "He that saves his life shall lose
it" and all that saving will be proven to be as
a deadly loss when Christ comes.
Let us give ourselves away to Him for His world
- away, away down to the deepest depths of our
being, money, time, influence - and home if He
call us to it - all as fuel to His fire. But let
us give Him our heart of hearts first. "They...
first gave their own selves to the Lord and unto
us by the will of God": that was God's order in
the beginning, and it still is. Where will the
influence of those who give themselves away
finally end? Who can say - like a flame once
aroused it may sweep on and on.
May I tell you a bit of personal history? It is
just the case in point. Years ago I was busy in
London work. All were prospering with God's
blessing, and I had no thought but to spend my
life there. The whole missionary subject seemed
to me rather dull and was altogether beyond the
horizon.
But I had two friends with whom I was often
thrown together with at work, and they both had
taken to heart the needs of a dark world. I do
not remember that they ever said anything
personally to me about it, but one could sense
it right through them. They were all aglow and
after a bit, though I took no more personal
interest in the matter, I began to feel that
they had a fellowship with Jesus that I knew
nothing about. I did love Him, and I did not
like to be out in the cold over it, so I began
to pray - "Lord give me the fellowship with Thee
about the nations that Thou hast given to those
two."
It was not many weeks before it began to come -
a strange, yearning love over those who were "in
the land of the shadow of death" - a feeling
that Jesus could speak to me about them, and
that I could speak to Him - that a great barrier
between Him and me had been broken right down
and swept away. I had no thought of leaving
England then or even at first of trying to stir
others at home, but soon God made my way out
into the darkness before eighteen months were
over, and through eternity I shall thank Him for
the silent flame in the hearts of those two
friends, and what it did for me. Neither of them
has ever had her path opened into foreign work,
but the light of day is coming when He will show
what they have done in kindling other souls.
