The Help of God

“He was marvellously helped till he was strong.9 — 2 Chrox. xxvi. 15.

There are two kinds of help in this world; there is marvellous help, and there is natural help. The marvellous help declines as the power of natural help grows. There is a time when we cannot help ourselves, and then everything is provided for us; we are guided by instinct as the bee is guided. Infancy is the most helpless of all periods so far as our self-help goes, yet perhaps it is the period of our least danger. We have then God’s marvellous help — the provision of maternal love and our own childlike instinct of obedience. We are led by a thousand influences, not one of which we have foreseen, not one of which we recognise even when it appears. But as our natural strength grows, God’s supernatural strength is gradually withdrawn, and when we have reached the promised land of our human nature the miraculous manna ceases. Say not that, therefore, God has Himself withdrawn; remember that what thou callest nature is God’s help also. When thou wert young and nature was weak He helped thee marvellously, supernaturally; when thou art full-grown and nature is strong He helps thee naturally — co-operates with thy nature, becomes a fellow-worker with thee. Dost thou see more of the supernatural in the lower than in the human creation? Say not on that account that there is less provision made for man. It is just the provision made for man that has caused the manna to cease. Knowest thou how dear to the heart of God it is to have a fellow-worker with Himself — one that feels what He feels, and whose spirit is helping with His own? Knowest thou how dear it is even to the earthly father when he learns for the first time that his being is no longer supernatural to the heart of his child, when, for the first time, the heart of his child works with his heart, helps with his help, strives with his aim, feels with his desire? That is an earthly fathers joy because in that hour he knows that he is not supernatural to his child any more, but that their natures are for ever one. So is it with thy heavenly Father when He sees His Christ in thee; He reaches then the true parental joy. ‘Tis then He knows that the partition wall is broken between Him and thee, that heaven and earth have met together. ‘Tis then He knows that He no longer stands over thee as a lawgiver, or dictates to thee as a sovereign, for He beholds thee strong with His strength, natural with His nature, able to work with Him, because His spirit has become thine own. Happy art thou, my soul, when thy strength shall be so perfected to thy Fathers eye that He shall send thee no more the help that is marvellous, but shall ask thee to work with Him in that human helpfulness which is the life of Christ.