The Soul’s Hidden Life Sustained by Prayer

The soul that has found Jesus has found life. “And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”* (1 John 5:11) This life is a heavenly life, because it comes from God. It is heavenly not only in its purity but also in its peacefulness. This life of the soul is a hidden life. “Your life is hid with Christ in God.” Christianity is not an exterior, visible something. As the fruit of a tree is not the life of the tree so holy action is not the life of the soul but is the fruit of that life; and as the bearing of fruit does not sustain the life of the tree, so the doing of good deeds does not keep the soul alive. Its life is sustained from an unseen hidden source. If a man’s religion consists in his doing and his talking he has not the true Christian religion. If he loves to talk about the things of God more than he loves to talk with God; if he has more animation in public prayer than in secret prayer, it is to be feared that his religion is only an external thing and not that true religion which has its source in God. If a person can talk out more than he experiences in his heart; if he has more outward thought than inward feeling, his religion is gleaned from an outside source, and not breathed into his soul by the Spirit of God. If he has a religion that is fed through the intellect, a religion that is borrowed or learned from others, and not that which comes along as a hidden stream from God, his religion is vain. True spiritual life comes from God to man’s soul and then flows out in holy living. This life is both gained and sustained through believing prayer. The reading of the Scriptures is listening to the voice of God and is the listening side of prayer.

All true spiritual life and holy living comes by the soul’s life being hid with Christ in God. “In him [is] life; and the life [is] the light of men.”* (John 1:4) The good deed, in order to be of full value, needs to have the stamp of the divine life; a coin must bear the government stamp in order to pass current. Our acts of kindness should have their origin farther back than in us. If they proceed from us, they will leave our imprint on others; if they have their rise in God, they will engrave His image on the character of others. “All my springs are in thee,”* (Psalm 87:7) said one who had all his expectations from God. “There is a river [or spring], the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,”* (Psalm 46:4) Our stream of life should have its spring in God. Achsah was leaving her father’s home to go and dwell with her husband. Taking advantage of a father’s feeling, she asked him for a blessing. He had given her a south land, and now she desired a spring of water. He gave her the upper and the nether springs. Too many, we fear, have only the upper, or surface springs, whose waters fail in a dry time, and dry times will come. We should have the nether (underneath) springs, whose waters never fall. If our outward life has its rise in our own human sympathy, compassion, and kindness, it will be feeble in a dry time. Oh! let your life be hid with Christ in God, that the spring of every act, word, and thought may be in Him. If man’s life has its rise in himself, it may bind man to him; but if it has its rise in God, it will bind men to God. The cultivation of gentleness, kindness, and love is excellent; but let it be the cultivation of that gentleness, kindness, and love that comes from God, and not the cultivation of merely our own qualities. If you desire to be kind, go into the presence of Jesus. Draw near that He may breathe His Spirit upon you. A kind, tender feeling will begin to thrill your heart, and then as you go out among men, the vibration of that thrill will strike upon the hearts of men and win them to Jesus. If you would have more love, look with steadfast eye to Calvary. See the pierced hands and side, the thorn-crowned brow, and hear the “Eli! Eli! lama sabachthani,”* (Matthew 27:46) and there will begin to kindle in your soul a love that will make men feel the warmth of its flame.

It is by prayer that the soul’s life is sustained. The intellect may feed upon the external perceptions of God, but the soul feeds and lives upon God Himself. Live each moment under the cover of His feathers. Hide beneath the shadow of His wing. When the angry storm-clouds of life are gathering, oh, how blessed to feel the soft down of God’s feathers covering us and when the heat of trial is kindling upon us, to feel the cooling shadow of His wing! Let thy spirit, O pilgrim saint, closely entwine with the Spirit of thy God. Let thy life be hid in the secret of His pavilion, and there in the closest intimacy commune with Him. Thus shalt thy daily life be like the peaceful flowing of the river whose banks are ever verdant as the springtime.

I dwell beneath His shadows
’Tis sweet to shelter there,
Secured within His loving arms
From all distracting care;
To nestle ’neath the feathers
Of his protecting wings,
Defying there hell’s fiery darts
And all beside that stings.

I dwell beneath His shadow
And gladly linger there,
While on His love I feed my soul
And His own peace I share.
Oh! precious are these tastes of
The fullness is to come,
But these refresh us on our way
To fuller joys at home.