Meditations on Manhoodနမူနာ

MAN’S INCAPACITY AND GOD’S CAPACITY

Not many great men, not many mighty are chosen; but God has chosen the poor of this world, and things that are not, and things that are despised, yea, and weak things and foolish things, has God chosen. Come to Him, for if you are incapable, He is not, and His capacity will soon overcome your incapacity. You say, “I cannot learn.” Ah, but you do not know how well He can teach, for He can teach so well that even those who think they cannot learn are soon instructed in His school. Stand not back, dear friend, because you cannot pay the fee, for my Master’s is a free school; He takes nothing from us, but He gives everything. The only admission ticket that you want is simply to be willing to be taught, to be conscious that you need teaching and guiding, and to submit yourself to His guidance and instruction. Are you willing so to do? “Oh,” say you, “I shall grieve Him till he gives me up.” Well, I have often thought so. I do not wonder that you are troubled with that thought; it has often come across me when I see what little progress I have made after being so many years in His school. If I had any human master he would have been out of patience with me long ago, but the Lord Jesus Christ never gives up a scholar; having once commenced to teach, He continues His divine lessons till they are fully learned, and the more difficult it is for Him to teach the more honor it will be when He gets all his scholars educated for the skies. He will not brook a defeat in this matter; He will overcome ignorance, and sin, and hardness of heart, and infirmity, and incapacity, till He shall have instructed us in the lore of heaven, and made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.