If I have not companion on my
fellow-servant even as my Lord had pity on me, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If I belittle those whom I am called
to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as
my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to
differ? And what has thou that thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can
easily discuss the shortcomings and the sins of any; if I can speak in a casual
way even of a child’s misdoings, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I find
myself half-carelessly taking lapses for granted, “Oh, that’s what they always
do,” “Oh, of course she talks like that,
he acts like that,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I enjoy a
joke at the expense of another; if I can in any way slight another in
conversation, or even in thought, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can
write an unkind letter, speak an unkind work, think an unkind thought without
grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not
feel far more for the grieved Saviour than for my worried self when troublesome
things occur, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I know
little of His pitifulness (the Lord
turned and looked upon Peter), if I know little of His courage of
hopefulness for the truly humble and penitent (“He saith unto him, Feed My
Lambs”), then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I deal
with wrong for any other reason than that implied in the words, “From His right hand went a fiery law for
them. Yea, He loved the people”; if
I can rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If, in
dealing with one who does not respond, I weary of the strain, and slip from
under the burden, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cannot
bear to be like the father who did not soften the rigors of the far country;
if, in this sense, I refuse to allow the law of God (the way of transgressors
is hard) to take effect, because of the distress it causes me to see that law
in operation, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am
perturbed by the reproach and misunderstanding that may follow action taken for
the good of souls for whom I must give account; if I cannot commit the matter
and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the Cross, then I
know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cannot
catch “the sound of noise of rain”* long before the rain falls, and, going to
some hilltop of the spirit, as near to my God as I can, have not faith to wait
there with my face between my knees, though six times or sixty times I am told
“there is nothing,” till at last “there arises a little cloud out of the sea,”
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
*1Kings 18:41
If my attitude be one of fear, not
faith, about one who has disappointed me; if I say, “Just what I expected,” if
a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not look with eyes of hope
on all in whom there is even a faint beginning, as our Lord did, when, just after
His disciples had wrangled about which of them should be accounted the
greatest, He softened His rebuke with those heart-melting words, “Ye are they which have continued with Me in
My temptations,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cast up a confessed, repented,
and forsaken sin against another, and allow my remembrance of that sin to color
my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I have not the patience of my
Saviour with souls who grow slowly; if I know little of travail (a sharp and
painful thing) till Christ be fully formed in them, then I know nothing of
Calvary love.
If I sympathize weakly with
weakness, and say to one who is turning back from the Cross, “Pity thyself”; if
I refuse such a one the sympathy that braces and the brave and heartening word
of comradeship, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cannot keep silence over a
disappointing soul (unless for the sake of that soul’s good or for the good of
others it be necessary to speak), then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can hurt another by speaking
faithfully without much preparation of spirit, and without hurting myself far
more than I hurt that other, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am afraid to speak the truth,
lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not
understand,” or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my
own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If I am content to heal a hurt
slightly, saying “Peace, peace,” where is no peace; if I forget the poignant
word “Let love be without dissimulation” and blunt the edge of truth, speaking
not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I fear to hold another to the
highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.
If I hold on to choices of any kind, just because they are my choice; if I
give any room to my private likes and dislikes, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If I put my own happiness before the
well-being of the work entrusted to me; if, though I have this ministry and
have received much mercy, I faint, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am soft to myself and slide
comfortably into the vice of self-pity and self-sympathy; if I do not by the
grace of God practice fortitude, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I myself dominate myself, if my
thoughts revolve round myself; if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have “a
heart at leisure from itself,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
IF, the moment I am conscious of the
shadow of self crossing my threshold, I do not shut the door, and in the power
of Him who works in us to will and to do, keep that door shut, then I know nothing
of Calvary love.
If I cannot in honest happiness take
the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making
a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If, when I am
able to discover something which has baffled others, I forget Him who revealeth
the deep and secret things, and knoweth what is in the darkness and showeth it
to us; if I forget that it was He who granted that ray of light to His most
unworthy servant, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cannot be at rest under the
Unexplained, forgetting the word, “And
blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me:’ of if I can allow the
least shadow of misunderstanding, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not give a friend “the
benefit of the doubt,” but put the worst construction instead of the best on
what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I take offense easily, if I am
content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If a sudden jar can cause me to
speak an impatient, unloving word, then I know nothing of Calvary love.*
*For a cup brimful of sweet water
cannot spill even one drop of bitter water
however
suddenly jolted.
If I feel injured when another lays
to my charge things that I know not, forgetting that my Sinless Saviour trod
this path to the end, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.
If I feel bitterly towards those who
condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I
know myself they would condemn me much more, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If I say, “Yes, I forgive, but I
cannot forget,” as though the God who twice day washes all the sands on all the
shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.
If one whose help I greatly need
appears to be as content to build in wood, hay, stubble, as in gold, silver,
precious stones, and I hesitate to obey my light and do without that help because
so few will understand, then, I know nothing of Calvary love.
If the care of a soul (or a
community) be entrusted to me, and I consent to subject it to weakening
influences, because the voice of the world – my immediate Christian world –
fills my ears, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If by doing some work which the
undiscerning consider “not spiritual work” I can best help others, and I
inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth
it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If monotony tries me, and I cannot
stand drudgery; if stupid people fret me and little ruffles set me on edge; if
I make much of the trifles of life, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am inconsiderate about the
comfort of others, or their feelings, or even of their little weaknesses; if I
am careless about their little hurts and miss opportunities to smooth their
way; if I make the sweet running of household wheels more difficult to
accomplish, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If interruptions annoy me, and
private cares make me impatient; if I shadow the souls about me because I
myself am shadowed, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If souls can suffer alongside, and I
hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.
If there be any reserve in my giving
to Him who so loved that He gave His Dearest for me; if there be a secret “but”
in my prayer, “anything but that, Lord,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I become entangled in any
“inordinate affection”; if things or places or people hold me back from
obedience to my Lord, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If something I am asked to do for
another feels burdensome; if, yielding to an inward unwillingness, I avoid
doing it, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If the praise of man elates me and
his blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without
defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more
than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I crave hungrily to be used to
show the way to liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it is
be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that
to another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If I want to be known as the doer of
something that has proved the right thing, or as the one who suggested that it
should be done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not forget about such a
trifle as personal success, so that it never crosses my mind, or if it does, is
never given a moment’s room there; if the cup of spiritual flattery tastes
sweet to me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If it be not simple and a natural
thing to say, “Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people
were prophets,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
IF in the fellowship of service I
seek to attach a friend to myself, so that others are caused to feel unwanted;
if my friendships do not draw others deeper in, but are ungenerous (to myself,
for myself), then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I refuse to allow one who is dear
to me to suffer for the sake of Christ, if I do not see such suffering as the
greatest honor that can be offered to any follower of the Crucified, then I
know nothing of Calvary love.
If I slip into the place that can be
filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul instead of
leading it to fasten upon Him, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If my interest in the work of others
is cool; if I think in terms of my own special work; if the burdens of others
are not my burdens too, and their joys mine, then I know nothing of Calvary
love.
If, when an answer I did not expect
comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, I shrink back from it; if the
burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart’s choice, and I
fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I avoid being “ploughed under,”
with all that such ploughing entails of rough handling, isolation, uncongenial
situations, strange tests, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I wonder
why something trying is allowed, and press for prayer that it may be removed;
if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment, and cannot go on in peace under
any mystery, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I make much of anything
appointed, magnify it secretly to myself or insidiously to others; if I let
them think it “hard,” if I look back longingly upon what used to be, and linger
among the byways of memory, so that my power to help is weakened, then I know
nothing of Calvary love.
If the love that “alone maketh light
of every heavy thing, and beareth evenly every uneven thing” is not my heart’s
desire, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I refuse to be a corn of wheat
that falls into the ground and dies (“is separated from all in which it lived
before”), then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I ask to be delivered from trial
rather than for deliverance out of it, to the praise of His glory; if I forget
that the way of the Cross leads to the Cross and not to a bank of flowers; if I
regulate my life on these lines, or even unconsciously my thinking, so that I
am surprised when the way is rough, and think it strange, though the word is, “Think it not strange,” “Count it all joy,” then
I know nothing of Calvary love.
If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot
be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then
I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I covet any place on earth but
the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
That
which I know not, teach Thou me, O lord, my God.
