COMING IN
by Alexander Maclaren
If life has a clear, definite aim, and especially if
its aim is the
highest, there will be detachment from, and
abandonment of, many
lower ones. Nothing worth doing is done, and nothing
worth being is
realised in ourselves, except on condition of
resolutely ignoring
much that attracts. 'They went forth'; Haran must be
given up if
Canaan is to be reached. Artists are content to pay
the price for
mastery in their art, students think it no hardship
to remain
ignorant of much in order to know their own subject
thoroughly; men
of business feel it no sacrifice to give up culture,
leisure, and
sometimes still higher things, such as love and
purity, to win
wealth. And we shall not be Christians after
Christ's heart unless
we practise similar restrictions. The stream that is
to flow with
impetus sufficient to scour its bed clear of
obstructions must not
be allowed to meander in side branches, but be
banked up in one
channel. Sometimes there must be actual surrender
and outward
withdrawal from lower aims which, by our weakness,
have become rival
aims; always there must be subordination and
detachment in heart and
mind. The compass in an iron ship is disturbed by
the iron, unless
it has been adjusted; the golden apples arrest the
runner, and there
are clogs and weights in every life, which have to
be laid aside if
the race is to be won. The old pilgrim fashion is
still the only
way. We must do as Abram did: leave Haran and its
idols behind us,
and go forth, ready to dwell, if need be, in
deserts, and as
sojourners even when among cities, or we shall not
reach the 'land
that is very far off.' It is near us if we forsake
self and the
'things seen and temporal,' but it recedes when we
turn our hearts
to these.
'Into the land of Canaan they came.' No man honestly
and rightly
seeks God and fails to find Him. No man has less
goodness and
Christ-likeness than he truly desires and earnestly
pursues. Nearer
aims are often missed, and it is well that they
should be. We should
thank God for disappointments, for hopes
unfulfilled, or proving
still greater disappointments when fulfilled. It is
mercy that often
makes the harvest from our sowing a scanty one, for
so we are being
taught to turn from the quest in which searching has
no assurance of
finding, to that in which to seek is to find. 'I
have never said to
any of the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain.' We
may not reach
other lands which seem to us to be lands of promise,
or when we do,
may find that the land is 'evil and naughty,' but
this land we shall
reach, if we desire it, and if, desiring it, we go
forth from this
vain world. The Christian life is the only one which
has no
failures, no balked efforts, no frustrated aims, no
brave settings
out and defeated returnings. The literal meaning of
one of the Old
Testament words for _sin_ is missing the mark, and
that embodies the
truth that no man wins what he seeks who seeks
satisfaction elsewhere
than in God. Like the rivers in Asiatic deserts,
which are lost in
the sand and never reach the sea, all lives which
flow towards anything
but God are dissipated and vain.
But the supreme realisation of an experience like
Abram's is
reserved for another life. No pilgrim Zion-ward
perishes in the
wilderness, or loses his way or fails to come to
'the city of
habitation.' 'They go from strength to strength,
every one of them
in Zion appeareth before God.' And when they appear
there, they will
think no more, just as this narrative says nothing,
of the sandy,
salt, waterless wildernesses, or the wearinesses,
dangers, and toils
of the road. The experience of the happy travellers,
who have found
all which they sought and are at home for ever in
the fatherland
towards which they journeyed, will all be summed up
in this, that
'they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and
into the land of
Canaan they came.'
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