Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Feeble Question of the Poor Prisoners of Time

"Moses my servant is dead."
~ Joshua 1:2
What a dire calamity! What will the Lord do now? Who is there to stand in the gap? The vacancy is so vast that it will surely be difficult to discover a man of adequate breadth and stature worthily to fill the empty place and sustain the tremendous loud. Can one be found at such short notice?

Ah! that is the feeble question of the poor prisoners of time. We are shut up with the horizon of the immediate now; and because we have no vision of the future we are frequently the victims of surprise, almost amounting to dismay.

Nothing can take the Eternal unawares. The crisis that fills us with panic is simply the turning of a page in the book of His remembrance. We speak sometimes as though God were bankrupt. Good men are scarce, we say, and grudge their going, as though the divine resources were quite unequal to the heavy demands of the future.

The great Craftsman, who is fashioning the world in righteousness and conforming the race to the image of His Son, can always find another tool, sharpened and ready to His hand.

And thus through the lapse of years the work goes on in unbroken continuity. The heroes of the faith are not yet extinct. The age of chivalry is never ended.

Our Warrior-God is even now forging a battle-ax of still more finely tempered steel with which to cleave the ranks of the adversary. In his quiver there is many a polished shaft that has not yet been fitted to the bow.

Do not distress yourselves unduly. There is no dearth of warriors for the great crusade.

Only see to it that ye yourselves are ready to respond to the bugle call.

~ R. Moffat Gautrey (The Glory of Going On)

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