Gold Nugget 280 - The Governing Power

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      All human life is a “way,” a journey, a pilgrimage, through various scenes and circumstances, to the “bourn from whence no traveler returns.”  And, free as we may be and accountable for our own actions, there is a sense in which it is equally true that it is given to none of us to determine what that way shall be.  We are called on to recognize a governing power external to ourselves, above and beyond ourselves. …

      A man’s own judgment and impulse are not in themselves a safe rule for the conduct of his life.  He cannot always trace the mutual relation of interest and events, is liable to be deceived by appearances, blinded by the glamour of his own feelings, misled by the force of his own self-will.  The very complexity of the circumstances among which he “walks” is often a source of danger.  He is as one surrounded by the diverse interlacing paths of a forest; he needs both external guidance and internal influence to direct his choice.  The right way is not “in himself.” …

      No man has the actual power to determine altogether the course of his own life.  Free as he may think himself to be to take what “steps” he pleases, he is, after all, often ruled by circumstances over which he has no control.  He is not always master of his own movements, cannot do the thing that he would, constrained perhaps to do something totally different from what he intended.

      Who has not found himself to have been drifted, by the silent, unobserved current of events, into a position entirely other than he would have chosen for himself?  Who has not had to accept, as the issue of his own doings, something strangely unlike what he looked for?  “Man proposes; God disposes..” …

      Hidden as the power that governs our life may be, the teachable mind discerns ever more and more clearly the method of its working. …  Dark as our way may be, we cannot go far wrong if we follow the dictates of conscience.  Be true in everything to your own sense of right and to the clear lines of Divine Law, and you may safely leave all issues with God. …

      In the confused conflict of adverse circumstances, in the deep night of our sorrow and our fear, we hear a voice that whispers to us “All is well.”  It must be so if we believe that almighty Love is Lord of all.

The Pulpit Commentary, Jeremiah p. 288-289, Jeremiah 10:23, (J. Waite)

Gold Nugget 280

The Governing Power

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