The Humility of Greatness

John x. 4 v.

“When he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them.”

There is a time in the Christian life when God puts us forth — brings us out into the great world. But our Lord says that this period of advancement is the time when we feel most in the rear — “when He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them.” We never see Christ so far in advance of us as in the time of our own progress; the man who comes nearest to Him says that he follows afar off. No one feels himself so little a leader as the great man. Small men have no guiding star; they walk by their own light. But the sage will not journey till he has seen his star. He is of all men the humblest, the most reverent, the most fearful. He uncovers his head beneath skies purer than his own; he bends before the mystery which he sees, but cannot solve; he prays beside the sea whose margin his feet have touched.

Son of Man, ever let me feel that Thou art before me. Thou art always before me, but I have not always felt it. I was very proud in my small days. Ere yet I had been enlarged by Thee, I had no shrinking in my nature. I pitied the past, and proposed to set it right; I pitied the present, and purposed to excel it. But when I was put forth, brought out, given a post in advance, then it was that I felt humble. The flower of my life turned to the sun when it began to blossom; in its ripeness it looked to Thee. The proof of its summer was its sense of impotence, of inability to stand alone. Never let me lose this sense of impotence, this evidence of the kindled flower. Never let me lose that want of Thee which is the pledge that I am nearing Thee. I am only Aspired when I have aspired — sighed for something above me. When I first saw Thee, I thought it was a light thing to reach Thee; I said, “Bid me that I come to Thee on the waters.” But now the stream has become a river, and the river has widened into a sea, and Thou art far before. Teach me it is a message of hope, not despair. Tell me I am never so close to Thee as when love throws its seeming gulf between. Reveal to me that when the hills look far away it is a sign that the rain is over. It is the putting forth of my soul that sends Thee on before.