How often do you exclaim at the drastic training and testing and trying of the physical will?
You view it as punishment direct, and from your heart, the cry of despair goes up again and again that God should not defend you from the evil that assails you with so much ferocity.
During these trials of spiritual strength, you are held—held in a most marvellous way—these great tests call to your side the Tender Saviour and the Father of mankind.
During the contests with the evil forces, you fight, it is true, with the strength that remains, but the battle—the real conflict—is between the Master and the destroyer, and because He is the Master, it is only a question of time.
Literally, and actually, you are held by Christ. Keep in your heart and mind, away down underneath, all the rebellion, the bitterness and the sense of injustice; if even crushed down by these thoughts, there remains just the wish to do better, the Saviour, out of the magnitude of His compassion and understanding, can do the rest.
If you allow that faint desire to be stamped out of being, then God, even though He be God, cannot work directly against the independence of the individual—and the evil, for the time being, gains the upper hand.
Yet, even so, do not think that this spells defeat. Always the still small voice of the Spirit goes on entreating, beseeching, urging, that you should try and think one thought of holiness. And holiness can be brought out even by that faint thought of God—the merest wish that He should intervene—holiness, which seems so far away—holiness is able to show itself in that fraction of desire because it is of the Spirit itself.
Take in something of the comfort, which lies underneath the Name of Christ.
Rising above that insistent clamour, there is the clarion voice of the Spirit—
I am Love and I am here to save! cries the Master.
If only the suffering could take this in. If only those who are forced to watch the suffering of others could listen—listen to the voice of Peace, which is everywhere, even in our world of conflict and strife. \\
If only you could listen to the Spirit, troubles and sorrows would be halved, and God would be enabled by your faith to show what Love is like.
God's love is stronger than all, and His power is able to work through even the deepest, the broadest and the highest bulwark of evil, but it takes time when you throw your strength onto the wrong side. You are not able to frustrate good, but you can hamper it in a way that causes you sorrow because you have one more ring to your path, and each time you turn to the shadows and away from this Guardian and rightful Companion, Christ, so a further ring is added, which you must traverse before you can reach the Centre, which is Spirit—Divinity Itself.
Understand that however large the ring may be that you are on, you are under the direct eye of the Creator, who is able—at any moment—to stretch forth His Hand across the intervening space and lift you out of danger.
Each ring, long and wearying, as its journey may be, slowly—though imperceptibly to you—brings you nearer to the Centre, and as you reach certain portions, memory catches up the echo of what the past has held. And again, regarding certain tests, where perhaps the vessel was not sufficiently strong, that echo is turned into actual experience. Nothing is learnt over twice, but those parts, which were not quite taken in at the first instance, have to be gone over again—and thus it is that experiences are repeated, but as the years go on, the memory of the anguish grows less and less and you are farther away from that which was, but remember that there is no part of the journey, which does not hold something, which links you to God.
As you go on the weary round, and as you pass on those rounds, gradually, yet certainly, you are getting nearer to the one great Goal—the Light of Light. And each ring so traversed brings you just that degree closer to the rays of the Light, and with the pilgrim who loves the Saviour, it is surprising how soon the dark stages are over—surprising how quickly you can get under the direct rays of the Sun of God, when darkness is no more and sorrow falls from you, for your eyes are fixed upon Love Itself.
However long the spiral road, or the circles of experience, the drawing power of the Spirit urges you on. With the spiral staircase, it seems at times that God is lost from view and it is more helpful if you visualise God in the centre—all-Seeing, all-Knowing, all-Wise, and you, travelling ever round Him, always in touch with Him, and He always having you under His care, no blocks in between, no portions of the road when the vision is obliterated, and even in your times of sorrow or temptation, there the Father stands—you are under His immediate and personal care and instantly you look to Him, the power comes.
Think of God as the Father, as the Light of the world, as the Power that is drawing all humanity to Him, and you travelling—separated only by conditions of holiness and of experience—but always in direct and open communion with Him and He with you.
And never forget this—that although it is impossible for an inexperienced soul to cross the circles—instead of going around them—yet God does that to all, and to the weakest and the frailest, again and again. You cannot approach His Godhead, but by His Fatherhood, He is ever by your side.
It is a wonderful thought—you will never know how wonderful until you are free from the body and see the rings that you have traversed, and the protection all along the way—protection in myriad forms because the Mind of the Greatest Protector of all is unlimited in thought and in Love.
—Zodiac, the Christ Messenger
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