A Day’s Time-Table by E. S. Elliott
Chapter 2
“Father, ‘the day is Thine,’
Framed with minutest care;
In need foreseen let love serene
Prevent me everywhere!
Guide, lest through erring sight,
Through dull or clouded sense,
One touch I miss of heaven’s own bliss
In Thy deep confidence.”
Was it a vision? Was it an illusion? Had she, in waking, heard a rustle of angels’ wings? Were the words “A time-table from the courts of heaven,” which, in clear accents, had seemed to greet her in the early morning hour, really and actually spoken, or were they only a return echo of her own utterance of the previous night? She could not tell; but something had happened! What could it be?
It was with a startled consciousness of some new and strangely quickened spiritual sense that Lois roused herself, and realized that a transformation had been wrought, not on herself only, but on her immediate surroundings. Her room, indeed, was unchanged. The time-honored furniture, the book-shelves with their familiar contents, the photographs on the walls, were all as usual. And yet, as if dignified by contemplation from a fresh aspect, all seemed to combine in the monition enforced by right of habitual service, “Let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God.”
“The place of my calling!” she exclaimed, with a half-bewildered exploratory use of the fresh discernment which, almost unconsciously, found vent in the words, “Thou cam’st not to thy place by accident; it was the very place God meant for thee.”
“Everything of circumstance seems this morning to be transformed into providence!” she continued. “But what is this? What can this mean? My Bible lay here beside my bed – and now – THIS – instead!” And with a strange awe she took up a small parchment scroll, gold-lettered, and stamped with royal and mystic imprimatur, and read the superscription:
“LOIS EMERSON.
“The time-table for the day, decreed in heaven.”
There were some side-letterings which at once arrested her attention.
“I have made with thee an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure.” “My times are in Thy hand,” formed the legend beneath a sun-dial which bore the inscription, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? The night cometh.”
The central scroll bore the words, “Lo, I am with you all the days,” and beneath she read, “The Spirit of truth will guide you;” while “He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation,” was the engraving on the seal.
“I have known those words all my life,” exclaimed Lois, “but some new power has touched them! Positively they mean that this very Thursday has come down to me prepared by God. They mean that He has, with wonderful individuality, planned certain works for me – apart from anyone else – to walk in – good works for the carrying out of which I have been personally selected. It means that, in discerning these, and in seeking to live them out, His Holy Spirit’s guidance is covenanted, and that my thoughts may and should meet His thoughts on and on throughout each hour. What a discovery! What will not today be of joy and love, with continual surprises of delight at these meeting-places of tender design on His part, and of comprehending acceptance and outworking on mine! What will it not mean of bliss to know, by wondrous experience, that He Himself, by His Spirit, worketh in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure! It seems too astonishing, too condescending, to be true; and yet nothing less can be indicated by these words which suddenly have become real – a secret and personal revelation let down to me from God.”
All wonderings concerning the supernatural features of her gift were, in Lois’s then state of unwonted spiritual exaltation, curiously superseded by unquestioning acquiescence in her new possession, as she reverently ejaculated, “And now – now – the day begins, and – oh solemn thought! – I open the day’s time-table, the decree ‘passed in heaven,’ and read-
Then as she examined the calendar-scroll she became aware of the fashion of its construction. Only hour by hour, duty by duty, might it be unfolded. Seals, impossible to break before the prescribed time, prevented the anticipation of a single direction; and the words which first and alone met her eye were, “My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.”
“Oh joy! An audience directly!” exclaimed Lois, taking down a Bible from the shelf, and glancing at her watch, fearful lest a moment should be lost of the calm, uninvaded hour before breakfast. “’Cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness in the morning.’ ‘My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord.’ What an antiphony! What an immediate communion! No doubt whatsoever as to access to the throne of grace! My will and my affections, my powers, poor as they are, all must be afresh placed at His command. And then I must seek for the continuous second sight – the opening of eyes which He came to give, the teaching, unquenched by bitterness, self-will, evil-speaking, of His indwelling Spirit – that I may not lose a guiding word, may not misunderstand a single direction, may not miss a single resource of love, as I seek to meet His tender planning from hour to hour – no, an hour were too long! – from moment to moment throughout the preordered day.
“Where did I read that the prayer of Eliezer, ‘Send me good speed this day,’ should have been translated, ‘Cause to meet me this day’? Yes, O Lord, ‘Cause to meet me this day,’ at every turn. Let the joy, the dignity, of a secret understanding with Thee – of admission to Thy counsels as regards each step of the way – bring a glory to my life and an ‘unto the Lord’ to every action. Let assignations of Thy love mark every part of its history, so that my night-testimony shall be, ‘I being in the way, the Lord led me.’”
It was after a sense of having had, as never before, conscious transactions at an actual throne of grace, and communications from that throne through the medium of a living Word, that Lois prepared to explore the day which seemed to lie shining before her.
But before she carefully, and in promptly selected case, secured to her person the precious scroll in order to constant reference, a fresh seal had yielded to her reverently eager touch, and a fresh direction presented itself: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High: to show forth Thy loving-kindness in the morning.”
“‘To show forth Thy loving-kindness in the morning!’” she exclaimed anew. “How cold, how selfish, my worship has been! No incense! No service of thanksgiving! I have been satisfied to hear His loving-kindness, but how little showing forth on my part! Did I ever before stop still to realize that His mercies are new every morning? Have I ever praised, as if they had been lost and restored to me, for faculties – reason, sight, hearing – granted afresh? I seem to be unfolding a packet of newly sent gifts, sparkling with the dews of His blessing whose compassions fail not; but ‘whoso offereth praise, he honoreth Me,’ has had too little place in my thougts.
“And now my day is committed! I was so fearful about it – the home worries, the sense of inability for work, the want of more definite vocation. Why, whose vocation so definite as mine? My ‘Carmelite rule’ of last night!” – and a happy, love-kindled laugh of deep possession brightened Lois Emerson’s countenance – “I have something better now! How I have wondered about the ancient urim and thummim of guidance, and longed for something analogous to it in our own day! Now I see that the Great High Priest grants a corresponding, but oh, how much higher, gift to each one of His royal kingdom of priests. ‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’ How I have yearned over the wonderful record whether it were two days, or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed’ – and have thought what it would be could I have, for my direction, such visible ordering of the way! Now ‘as seeing Him who is invisible,’ now our own King Immanuel’s ‘He shall be with them in the way,’ shine out to me as actual realities. Not a vague acceptance of a matter-of-course doctine, but a joyful expectation from chartered guidance, goes into the day’s motto, ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’”
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September 3rd, 2007 - 12:32 am
Great post.
His lovingkindness IS better than life!
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