December 22 Daily Devotional

Do the duty that lies nearest thee. Thy second will already have become clearer
(Thomas Carlyle)

What a wonderful idea! This is a kind of spiritual blood transfusion—that is what Paul is teaching here. Here is a patient who has lost much blood for some reason or another. He is faint and gasping for breath. It is no use giving him drugs because he has not enough blood to absorb them and use them. The man is anaemic. The only thing you can do for him is to give him a blood transfusion, infuse blood into him. That is what Paul tells us the Lord Jesus Christ was doing for him. I find I am very feeble,’ says Paul, ‘my energy seems to flag and sometimes I feel I have no life blood in me at all. But ... because of this relationship, I find He infuses it into me. He knows my every state and condition, He knows exactly what I need. Oh, how much He gives me! He says, “My grace is sufficient for thee”, and so I can say, “when I am weak then I am strong”. Sometimes I am conscious of great power; there are other times when I expect nothing, but He gives everything.’

That is the romance of the Christian life. Nowhere does one experience it more than in a Christian pulpit.... I ascend the pulpit stairs Sunday after Sunday; I never know what is going to happen. I confess that sometimes for various reasons I come expecting nothing; but suddenly the power is given.... Thank God it is like that. I do my utmost, but He controls the supply and the power.... He is the heavenly physician and He knows every variation in my condition....

That, then, is the prescription. Do not agonize in prayer beseeching Him for power. Do what He has told you to do. Live the Christian life. Pray, and meditate upon Him. Spend time with Him and ask Him to manifest Himself to you. And as long as you do that you can leave the rest to him. He will give you strength—’as thy days so shall thy strength be’.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 299–300