Love Jesus 13

Excerpt from “Going to the Father,” by Henry Drummond.

“I go to my Father.”—JOHN xiv. 12.

Did you ever notice Christ’s favourite words?

If you have, you must have been struck by two things—their simplicity and their fewness.

Some half-dozen words embalm all his theology and these are, without exception, humble, elementary, simple monosyllables. They are such words as these—world, life, trust, love.

But none of these was the greatest word of Christ. That word was: Father.

Surely it is the most touching sight of the world’s past to see God’s only begotten Son coming down from heaven to try to teach the stammering dumb inhabitants of this poor planet to say, “Our Father.”

It is that word which has gathered the great family of God together … that God, whom others call King Eternal, Infinite Jehovah, is, after all, our Father, and we are His children.

To live daily in this simplicity, is to live like Christ.

Not one man in a hundred, probably, has a central word in his Christian life; and the consequence is this, that there is probably nothing in the world so disorderly and slipshod as personal spiritual experience.

With most of us, it is a thing without stability or permanence, it is changed by every trifle we meet, by each new mood or thought. It is a series of disconnected approaches to God, a disorderly succession of religious impulses, an irregulation of conduct, now on this principle, now on that, one day because we read something in a book, the next because it was contradicted in another.

And when circumstances lead us really to examine ourselves, everything is indefinite, hazy, unsatisfactory, and all that we have for the Christian life are the shreds perhaps of the last few Sabbaths’ sermons and a few borrowed patches from other people’s experience.

So we live in perpetual spiritual oscillation and confusion, and we are almost glad to let any friend or any book upset the most cherished thought we have.

Now the thing which steadied Christ’s life was the thought that He was going to His Father. This one thing gave it unity, and harmony, and success.

During His whole life He never forgot His Word for a moment:

There is no sermon of His where it does not occur; there is no prayer, however brief, where it is missed.

In its beginning and in its end, from the early time when He spoke of His Father’s business till He finished the work that was given Him to do, His life, disrobed of all circumstance, was simply this, “I go to My Father.”

If we take this principle into our own lives, we shall find its influence tell upon us in three ways:

I. It explains Life.

II. It sustains Life.

III. It completes Life.

I. It explains Life.

What is my life? whither do I go? whence do I come? these are the questions which are not worn down yet, although the whole world has handled them.

To these questions there are but three answers—one by the poet, the other by the atheist, the third by the Christian.

The Poet
The poet tells us, and philosophy says the same, only less intelligibly, that life is a sleep, a dream, a shadow.

It is a vapour that appeareth for a little and vanisheth away; a meteor hovering for a moment between two unknown eternities; bubbles, which form and burst upon the river of time.

This philosophy explains nothing.

It is a taking refuge in mystery. Whither am I going? Virtually the poet answers, “I am going to the Unknown.”

The Atheist
The atheist’s answer is just the opposite. He knows no unknown. He understands all, for there is nothing more than we can see or feel. Life is what matter is, the soul is phosphorus. Whither am I going? “I go to dust,” he says; “death ends all.” And this explains nothing. It is worse than mystery. It is contradiction. It is utter darkness.

The Christian
But the Christian’s answer explains something. Where is he going? “I go to my Father.” This is not a definition of his death—there is no death in Christianity; it is a definition of the Christian life. All the time it is a going to the Father. Some travel swiftly, some are long upon the road, some meet many pleasant adventures by the way, others pass through fire and peril; but though the path be short or winding, and though the pace be quick or slow, it is a going to the Father.

Now this explains life. It explains the two things in life which are most inexplicable. For one thing, it explains why there is more pain in the world than pleasure.

God knows, although we scarce do, there is something better than pleasure—progress. Pleasure, mere pleasure, is animal. He gives that to the butterfly. But progress is the law of life to the immortal. So God has arranged our life as progress, and its working principle is evolution. Not that there is no pleasure in it. The Father is too good to His children for that.

But the shadows are all shot through it, for He fears lest we should forget there is anything more. Yes, God is too good to leave His children without indulgences, without far more than we deserve; but He is too good to let them spoil us. Our pleasures therefore are mere entertainments. We are entertained like passing guests at the inns on the roadside. Yet after even the choicest meals we dare not linger. We must take the pilgrim’s staff again and go on our way to the Father.

Sooner or later we find out that life is not a holiday, but a discipline. Earlier or later we all discover that the world is not a playground. It is quite clear God means it for a school. The moment we forget that, the puzzle of life begins. We try to play in school; the Master does not mind that so much for its own sake, for He likes to see His children happy, but in our playing we neglect our lessons. We do not see how much there is to learn, and we do not care. But our Master cares.

… and because He loves us, He comes into the school sometimes and speaks to us. He may speak very softly and gently, or very loudly. Sometimes a look is enough, and we understand it, like Peter, and go out at once and weep bitterly. Sometimes the voice is like a thunderclap startling a summer night. But one thing we may be sure of: the task He sets us to is never measured by our delinquency.

The discipline may seem far less than our desert, or even to our eye ten times more. But it is not measured by these—it is measured by God’s solicitude for our progress; measured solely by God’s love; measured solely that the scholar may be better educated when he arrives at his Father.

The discipline of life is a preparation for meeting the Father. When we arrive there to behold His beauty, we must have the educated eye; and that must be trained here. We must become so pure in heart—and it needs much practice—that we shall see God. That explains life—why God puts man in the crucible and makes him pure by fire.

When we see Him, we must speak to Him. We have that language to learn. And that is perhaps why God makes us pray so much. Then we are to walk with Him in white. Our sanctification is a putting on this white.

But there has to be much disrobing first; much putting off of filthy rags.

This is why God makes man’s beauty to consume away like the moth. He takes away the moth’s wings, and gives the angel’s, and man goes the quicker and the lovelier to the Father.

We lose our way, perhaps, on the way to the Father. The road is rough, and we choose the way with the flowers beside it, instead of the path of thorns.

Often and often thus, purposely or carelessly, we lose the way.

So the Lord Jesus has to come and look for us. And He may have to lead us through desert and danger, before we regain the road —before we are as we were—and the voice says to us sadly once more, “This is the way to the Father.”

The other thing which this truth explains is, why there is so much that is unexplained. After we have explained all, there is much left.

All our knowledge, it is said, is but different degrees of darkness. But we know why we do not know why. It is because we are going to our Father.

We are only going: we are not there yet.

Therefore patience. “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know. Hereafter, thou shalt know.”

Hereafter, because the chief joy of life is to have something to look forward to. But, hereafter, for a deeper reason. Knowledge is only given for action. Knowing only exists for doing: and already nearly all men know to do more than they do do.

…like children tired out with efforts to put together the disturbed pieces of a puzzle, wait to take the fragments to our Father.

And yet, even that fails sometimes. He seems to hide from us and the way is lost indeed. The footsteps which went before us up till then cease, and we are left in the chill, dark night alone. If we could only see the road, we should know it went to the Father. But we cannot say we are going to the Father; we can only say we would like to go.

“Lord,” we cry, “we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?”

“Whither I go,” is the inexplicable answer, “ye know not now.”

Well is it for those who at such times are near enough to catch the rest: “But ye shall know hereafter.”