The Vision of the Spirit
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the Glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” — ACTs vii. 55.
§E, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up and saw.” There is a vision which
* only comes with spiritual fulness. In the world of nature the sight is the door to the spirit, but in the world of grace the spirit is the door to the sight. In my natural life God enters from without and penetrates within; in my spiritual life God enters from within and makes His progress outward. The first thing ‘n the life of nature is the last thing in the life of spirit — vision. I am often asking why it is that so little is revealed to me; it is because I myself am so little. If I had more spirituality would have more sight. There are treasures lying at the door of my dwelling which seem to me simply like a dust-heap. Some day I shall awake and marvel at my own riches; I shall marvel at the wells of water which were lying in my desert; I shall marvel at the crowns that were cast at the foot of my cross; I shall marvel at the beauty which lay at the top of the Dolorous way. The revelation is already waiting for me; it is blazoned on the sky, it is imprinted on the air; it will be inscribed upon my heart when I have ceased to be a child. When I am full of the Holy Ghost I shall look up and see.
O Spirit of holiness, grant me Thy latest gift — light. Thy beginning is love, but light shall be Thine ending. Thy spring-time is in my heart, but Thy summer shall be in mine eyes. It is not a new sense want, it is the power to interpret the old senses. I want to be led back over the old road to read its sign-posts in the light of later years. I want to go over the ground which I called barren and see if it had not all the time been strewn with flowers. I want to see the glory of that which was once my cross, the beauty of that which was once my thorn, the triumph of that which was once my trial. I want to learn that the days which seemed to me most dark and dreary. were in truth the days when heaven was opened to my view. When Thou hast taught me the glory of sacrifice I shall look steadfastly on the things before which I once quailed; above the very place of my martyrdom I shall see Jesus,