Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Jun 1951

Some there are who made a glorious beginning in the life of faith and in their service for God, but whose end is dark and cloudy of such are Gideon and Solomon. Some had cloudy patches, but in the end they emerged into the glorious sunshine of divine favour and so passed to their rest of such were Job and David How varied are the records of men's lives and endeavours! These things have been left on the page of inspired history for our admonition and encouragement as we weave the pattern of our lives which is yet to be exhibited us time to come How careful we should be as to each step we take! for in the hand loom on which we are working each movement of our feet, as we move the warp threads, and each casting by hand of the shuttle with the weft, will leave their effect on the whole which will be seen when the web of life is completed.

Gideon began well. In a day of difficulty surrounded by numerous foes on every side, he toiled in the arduous task of beating out wheat us the winepress. Down, unseen by men, but with the eye of God keeping watch upon him, he sweated as he used the tribulum or flail, beating out the wheat for the people of Israel contiguous to him, and as the narrative says, "to hide it from the Midianites" (Judges 8.11) who had come upon the land as locusts.

He was of a race to which a woman of later times belonged of whom it is said, "She hath done what she could". (Mark 14. 8) This is not a numerous race, but these people are of the same kind They emerge us various walks of life, but the origin of their similarity is the same that deep and real response in those secret movements of the human heart, far down in the spring of human emotions is that appreciation of the goodness and love of their Divine Saviour. Nothing moves the human heart like being in touch with deep and downward movement of divine love toward men, and which the individual feels within himself that he is truly in the channel in which that love is flowing. So it was with Gideon and so it was with Mary. It was wheat in the one case and precious ointment on the other, but these things in themselves were not what God valued, though they filled a vital place at that time, to feed the living and anoint the Dead. What God set such value upon was the motive and object of those deeds. Love to God was the well-spring of such actions; love which had been begotten of love; love which was the same in kind though less in degree than that love which sought Gethsemane and Golgotha in order to give to God eternal pleasure.

No action, Paul shows, is of value in itself, unless it is actuated by love. To speak with the silver tongues of men or the golden tongues of angels, without love, is but as the raucous sound of brass or clanging symbols; such actions as involve the loss of life or all worldly possessions for beneficient causes, without love, are entirely without profit to the sufferers.

We need, all of us, to examine the motives of our actions and seek to assess at a true value the essence of our lives.

Well, Gideon was beating out wheat when the angel of the LORD came to him midst the dust and noise of the winepress. His salutation was starling: "The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." Whereupon Gideon asked, "Oh my lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us?" He missed the point between "thee" and "us." Gideon thought little of himself, but much of Israel. He cared little for himself, but much for others. This is love - divine love - when it reaches the heart. The stories of days gone by, and of mighty happenings which he had listened to from childhood, were but the empty echo of a dead past. The present with its grinding toil and sorrow had eaten into this great man's soul.

J. Miller | Jun 1951
Jottings