Unconscious Gifts

Psalm cxxvii. 2 v. “He giveth unto His beloved in their sleep.” — (R.V.)

The most beautiful gifts are those of which their possessor is unconscious. God gives to many of us in our waking state, but not to the highest, not to the best beloved. Talent is got by waking, but not genius. Genius is like the nightingale — unconscious of the beauty of its own song. Even so is there a genius of the spirit. There are souls that win their virtue in the school of stern experience; God gives to them in waking. But there are others, like the garden of Eden, who need not a man to till the ground. They yield their fruit spontaneously. They are beautiful, not because they ought, but because they must. They can no more help being kind than the bee can help making its hive. They are not under the law, but under grace, and so they do everything, not legally, but gracefully. The flowers of their hearts are wild flowers; God alone has tended them; they have bloomed in the light of His smile; they have called no man master. These are they to whom the Father giveth in their sleep.

My Father, give me the blessing of those that “sleep in Jesus.” I do not need to die that I may sleep in Jesus; I have but to love. Make me unconscious of myself in the great sleep of love. Take away my sense of merit by removing my sense of struggle. Let me cease to say to myself, “I mean to work for others “; let me work without saying it, without knowing it. Make the doing of good by me an act of genius — a thing of spontaneous beauty. Let me cease to ask myself if I am breathing rightly the air of Thy Spirit; such a question is itself an impeding of the breath. Teach me that the health of Thy countenance is like all health — only known by its loss. I would not purchase its knowledge at such a price. I would be a child in the kingdom of Thy Son — happy, without counting its happiness; guileless, without seeing it is pure. Nay, I would be as Thy Son

Himself — ever on the bosom of the Father in a sleep of self-forgetfulness. None can reveal Thee hut those who lie on Thy bosom — who become unconscious of every thought of self. If I would see the King in His beauty, I must lose sight even of my highest grace; Thou givest to Thy beloved only in their sleep.