It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others.
God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.
When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship – when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.
Spend plenty of time with God; let other things go, but don’t neglect Him. We are not here to do work for God, we are here to be workers with Him, those through whom He can do His work.
Our Lord’s first obedience was to the will of his Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of his obedience to the Father.
