Why He Withholds

I had a lesson this week in the case of a good, Christian man who, through feebleness of mind, has fallen into the deepest despair. I never met a person in such awful despair as he was, and you cannot tell how it puzzled me to give him any sort of comfort; indeed, I failed after all.

He said, ‘I’m too big a sinner to be saved.’ So I said, ‘But the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘but you must remember the context which says ‘if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ Now, I do not walk in the light, said he; ‘I walk in the dark, and I have no fellowship with the people of God now, and therefore it does not apply to me.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘but He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.’ ‘That is the only text,’ he said, ‘I can never get over for it says ‘to the uttermost’ and I know I cannot have gone beyond that, and still it does not yield me comfort.’ I said, ‘But God asketh nothing of you but that you will believe Him; and you know if you ever so feeble a faith you are like a child — the feeble hand of a child can receive; and that is the mark of a Christian, — ‘of His fullness we have all received’ — and if you only receive with your hand, that is enough.’ ‘Aye,’ said he, ‘I have not the hand — I have not the hand of faith.’ ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘ you have the mouth of desire; you can ask, if you cannot receive with the hand.’ ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have not; I do not pray, I cannot pray; I have not the mouth of desire.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘all that is wanted is an empty place, a vacuum, so that God can put it in.’ ‘Ah, sir,’ said he, ‘you have got me there! I have a great deal of vacuum; I have an aching void — a vacuum. If ever there was an empty sinner in this world, I am one.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Christ will fill that vacuum; there is a full Christ for empty sinners.’

Let me now say the same to you as I said to that poor man. All God wants is a vacuum. You have got a vacuum. This is not too much to have; simply to be empty, to be pumped dry, to have nothing at all in you. But then, ‘He filleth the hungry with good things, and the rich He sendeth away empty.’ All that is wanted is to be down there on the ground. It is not hard work. It is not to sit up, nor to stand up, nor to kneel, but to lie there at His feet; and when He sees the soul flat on its face before Him, He will have mercy upon him.’

—Charles Spurgeon, from his sermon, ‘The Shield of Faith’

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There is a mystery in human hearts,
And though we be encircled by a host
Of those who love us well and are beloved,
There comes a sense of utter loneliness.
Our dearest friend is stranger to our joy,
And cannot realize our bitterness.
‘There is no one who really understands,
No one to enter into all I feel;’
Such is the cry of each of us in turn.
We wander in a solitary way.
No matter what or where our lot may be,
Each heart mysterious even unto itself,
Must live its inner life in solitude.

And would you know the reason why this is?
It is because the Lord desires our love,
In every heart He wishes to be first,
He therefore keeps the secret key Himself,
To open all its chambers and to bless
With perfect sympathy and holy peace,
Each solitary soul which comes to Him.
And when beneath some heavy cross you faint,
And say, ‘I cannot bear this load alone,’
You say the truth.

God made it purposefully so heavy
That you must return to Him.
The bitter grief which ‘no one understands,’
Conveys a secret message from the King,
Entreating you to come to Him again.
You cannot come too often or too near.
The God of mercy is infinite in grace,
His presence satisfies the longing soul
And those who walk with Him from day to day
Can never have ‘a solitary way.’

—a poem read by A.L. Alexander (1949)

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‘But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and far better than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?

I answer, What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need — the need of Himself? What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this, that they help to drive us to God?

Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at once, but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need; prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer. Our wants are for the sake of our coming into communion with God, our Eternal Need…

So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of prayer, yea, of existence itself in its infinite phases. We must ask that we may receive; but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God’s end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that. To bring His child to His knee, God withholds that man might ask.’

—George MacDonald

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‘And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.’

—Deuteronomy 8:3

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‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’

—Matthew 5:6

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‘Ask of Me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.’

—Psalm 2:8

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‘If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!’

—Matthew 7:11

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‘They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.’

—Revelation 7:16

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‘Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!’

—Psalm 95:6

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O, beloved. (tender)

You feel empty and lonely, hungry and thirsty, misunderstood, weary and prone to despair? You feel unable to press on for even one more moment here in this sun-parched wilderness? You’re holed up in the dark shed of self-pity? Your soul mocks you—‘Your sin is too great, your faith is too weak…?’ You fear that all is, in fact, lost? You wonder if He will forever withhold that which your aching heart most desires?

No, beloved—no. (extra gentle)

He has you right where He wants you just now—He has purposefully and methodically brought you to this place, this place where you are lying at His feet, square in the dust, your soul laid bare before Him…where you are nothing more than an empty vessel, a lump of clay, a broken mess of tears and heartache and longing…this place you despise being, and yet…

This—this is the place of mercy, my sweet one. (tender) The place where you are finally ready to commune with Him in humility, in awe and wonder. The place where you can see Him as He is, and see yourself as you are. The place to which you must descend before He is able to raise you up, beloved! (hopeful)

Why does a good God want you in this seemingly wretched place? Well, as George MacDonald so aptly states, beloved, ‘What if the good of all our smaller and lower needs lies in this—that they help to drive us to God?’ Yes, beloved—what if? What if this whole life, our entire existence here only commences when we are tenderly taken by Him and broken—our souls at their wits ends, our minds with no logical way out, our bodies longing for intimacy and rest—every bit of us emptied and crying out pitifully to be saved?

O, beloved, you are not failing in this. He has not forsaken you. Your lying prone before Him, on your face in the dust, tears falling, not knowing how you will take even one more breath, one more step here—this is precisely where He has led you, my beautiful one. (tender) Not because He is a cruel Father who delights to cause you pain. Not because He enjoys lording His greatness over you. Not because He intends to give you the punishment you justly deserve. No, beloved—no. (extra gentle)

Because He loves you. (O so tender) He loves you so very much that He wants you to come to Him of your own accord. He wants to see your eyes of love and tenderness gazing upon Him. He wants to hear your voice, the mere sound of which brings Him comfort and pleasure and joy. He wants you to respond to His gentle pursuit of you with delight and adoration! He wants you to submit to His will and His ways, trusting, fully, that He knows best.

O, beloved—He loves you! He wants to know you, He wants to fill you, He wants to raise you up with Himself and make a way for you to share in His glory! He wants to give you All Things! He wants to satisfy you with Himself!

But these things, O precious one (tender)—the fulfillment, the satisfaction, the resurrection— they can only come after our being humbled, after we recognize our immense need, after our prolonged asking and waiting upon Him, and after our death, beloved. (extra gentle) We die to sin and self down here in the dust of seeming hopelessness in order that He might cause us to rise, to stand, to walk, to run, to fly to Him One Day…

O, my soul—take heart! In your weakest moments, He is Strength. In your brokenness, He is Healer. In your despair, He is Hope. In your death, He is Life. In your longing, He is Love. (tender, earnest)

In this lowly place, this place of immense pain where all threatens to overwhelm, remember, beloved: This is the place of mercy. He has you right where He wants you. You are His. He has redeemed you and He is redeeming you.

Together, we bow before Him and give Him all honor and praise and glory, both now and forever.

Amen.