The Consecration of the Natural

Let the earth bring forth grass whose seed is in

itself upon the earth.” — Genesis i. ii.

What is the difference between this day of creation and the previous days? It is that for the first time there is a consecration of self-help. Hitherto, all help had come from above — from the light and the firmament. Here the earth itself is to be the agent. Everything is to be “after its kind;” everything is to have “the seed in itself.” What is meant is that for the future the natural shall be counted Divine. It is a lesson which we all need to learn. We often reject the providence of a thing because we say we can explain it. “Oh,” we cry, “it all happened quite naturally!” Why should a thing be un-Divine because I can explain it! The mystery is not how it comes, but what comes out of it. The marriage of Rebecca and Isaac was quite natural; it was, humanly speaking, accidental — the result of an act of passing courtesy; but the house of Israel came from it. The meeting of Ruth with Boaz was quite natural — it came in the way of business; but it was the human origin of Jesus.

My soul, believe in the consecration of the natural! Uncover your head in the temple of the commonplace! Bow down to the harmony God weaves out of trivial things! You meant to visit a house on Tuesday, but some impulse made you go on Monday. Reverence that impulse! You met one that day who became your life-friend. In a throb of human pity you took in a blind man from a thunderstorm. Reverence that human pity! — the man you preserved was Paul. You took the road to Emmaus from a motive you could not define. Reverence that undefined motive! — you met on that road the man that made your heart burn — Jesus. It is with thee, my soul, as with the bee; it flies from flower to flower for its own ends, but all the time it is making a hive. Even such is thy work below. Thou art pursuing thy pleasures, sometimes without a thought of God. Thou art flying from flower to flower in search of idle vanities; thou art building for a day and for the dust. But thou art doing what thou knowest not. Thou art rearing a mansion for the skies. Thou art making a tabernacle for the mount. Thou art constructing a tower whose top shalt reach to heaven; and one day thou thyself shalt wonder at thine unconscious workmanship. Thou hast designed to build a row of cottages, and there has emerged the City of God. Thou hast sown thine own seed; but it has issued in God’s tree.