Provision in Advance

John x. 3 v.
“To liini the porter openeth.”

When a man approaches the right door, he does not need to open it himself; it is done for him. There is always someone behind the right door ready to let me in. I may knock for ages at the wrong one; I may beat with clubs of iron against opposing gates; if they are not the gates for me, they will not yield. But when I come to the true gate, the porter opens it in advance. I never require to knock; the barriers recede from before me. I do not carve my openings in life; they are made before I come up — made by what men call accident. Pharaoh’s daughter would have walked by the banks of the Kile though I had not been drowning. The ram would have been caught in the thicket though I had never climbed the steep of Moriah. The door that lets me in may have opened to let another out. “Then, it all happened quite naturally,” you say; “there was no Providence in it.” Yes, it all happened quite naturally, and, therefore, there was a Providence in it. What is Providence? It is the weaving of my life into another life; it is the music of footsteps moving different ways. The shepherds come to watch, and the angels come to sing; but the watchers and the singers meet face to face, and each enters by the other’s door.

I thank Thee, oh, my Father, that the doors of my life are not left to be opened by me. I thank Thee that behind the right door the porter ever stands. Thou hast set before me, not a door to be opened, but” an open door.’’ When I come up, I shall find it already ajar, and I shall enter easily in. It is the distance that appals me. My door seems a closed one till I reach it. The struggles of my heart are struggles of anticipation. I need faith, not for the moment, but for the prospect. When the door is distant, the opening is invisible. Be it so, my Father; Thou hast promised me my bread for each day, but not my bread for to-morrow. Yet, let me believe that to-morrow’s door has been opened to-day. Let me believe that, while I was yet afar off, my Father saw me. Let me believe that the Ararat of my peace was prepared below the flood. Teach me that the fulness of my time is not my struggle, but my facility. Teach me that, if my hour were come, the water would become wine spontaneously. Teach me that, if the door has opened to the instinct of the bee, it must have opened still wider to my soul. I have lost a sense in becoming man. Give me the bee’s unconsciousness of self, that I may be filled with Thy Divine instinct, and led without struggle to the ivory gate and golden. I shall know the true door by one direction; it is the door that is already open.