Divine Education

“/ taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them” — Hosea xl 3.

Thou sayest that this world is a scene of probation; no, it is not, it is a place of education. God has placed thee here not to prove thee but to teach thee — to hold thee by the arms until thou shalt learn to walk. What need to put thee into the world to prove that by nature thou canst not walk? What need to bring thee into life only that thou mayest sit for thy portrait and reveal thy blemishes in the light of eternity? If this were all the design of thy being it were indeed a waste of being. Thy Father hath made thee for something other than that — not to prove thine impotence but to train thy footsteps, not to reveal thy blemishes but to perfect thy beauty. Thy God is educating thee. Very beautiful is the metaphor by which He describes His education of the world: it is that of a mother training the steps of her child. She stands at a seeming distance and says, tl Come.” She stands at a seeming distance, but all the time the intervening space is bridged by the arms of love. There is not a moment’s break in the continuity of that grasp with which she holds her treasure. She seeks but to awaken within her child that pride of new responsibility which comes from the semblance of being alone, to make it feel as if it were independent by the exercise of its own power. Nor does she tell it that she is teach in g it to walk. “We are best taught when we are taught unconsciously. She tempts it towards her with some glittering prize, some bright bauble, some sparkling reward, and the little feet know not that the true prize is their own healing, the true reward their own power of exercise. So, too, is it with thy heavenly Father. He tempts thee on thy way, on His way, by something which is not His object, nor which yet is thy goal. He shows thee a glittering bauble at the end of the way, and says, “Come;” He tempts thee by a promised land into a land that transcends the promise. Thou knowest not that He heals thee. It seems to thee that thou art being led by the green pastures only that thou mayest gather the flowers of earthly pleasure. Yet all the time thou art being conducted by a way that thou knowest not into a city of habitation of which thou dost not dream. Thy Father’s end for thee is better than thine own end for thyself; thine is only the earthly Canaan, His is the heavenly Christ. The promised land thou art seeking is at best but poor and fleeting, but in thy march towards it thou art gaining what thou dost not seek — the lesson of a walk with God.