Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, i.e., it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul's category of love.

We cannot say - "Now I am going to think no evil; I am going to believe all things." The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not set the statements of Jesus in front of us as a standard; but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of God in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past.

The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally. In looking back we cannot tell why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us.

The life of God manifests itself in this spontaneous way because the

Often it is simply the answers to our prayers that cause many of the difficulties in the Christian life. We pray for patience, and our Father sends demanding people our way who test us to the limit, “because . . . suffering produces perseverance” (Romans 5:3).

We pray for a submissive spirit, and God sends suffering again, for we learn to be obedient in the same way Christ “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8).

We pray to be unselfish, and God gives us opportunities to sacrifice by placing other people’s needs first and by laying down our lives for other believers. We pray for strength and humility, and “a messenger of Satan” (2 Corinthians 12:7) comes to torment us until we lie on the ground pleading for it to be withdrawn.

We pray to the Lord, as His apostles did, saying, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5). Then our money seems to take wings and fly away; our children become critically ill; an employee becomes careless, slow, and wasteful; or some other new trial comes upon us, requiring more faith than we have ever before experienced.

We pray for a Christlike life that exhibits the humility of a lamb. Then we are asked to perform some lowly task, or we are unjustly accused and given no opportunity to explain, for “he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and . . . did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).

We pray for gentleness and quickly face a storm of temptation to be harsh and irritable. We pray for quietness, and suddenly every nerve is stressed to its limit with tremendous tension so that we may learn that when He sends His peace, no one can disturb it.

We pray for love for others, and God sends unique suffering by sending people our way who are difficult to love and who say things that get on our nerves and tear at our hearts. He does this because “love is patient, love is kind. . . . It does not dishonor others . . . it is not easily angered. . . . It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5, 7–8).

Yes, we pray to be like Jesus, and God’s answer is: “I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10); “Will your courage endure or your hands be strong?” (Ezekiel 22:14); “Can you drink the cup?” (Matthew 20:22).

The way to peace and victory is to accept every circumstance and every trial as being straight from the hand of our loving Father; to live “with him in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 2:6), above the clouds, in the very presence of His throne; and to look down from glory on our circumstances as being lovingly and divinely appointed.

I prayed for strength, and then I lost awhile All sense of nearness, human and divine; The love I leaned on failed and pierced my heart, The hands I clung to loosed themselves from mine; But while I swayed, weak, trembling, and alone, The everlasting arms upheld my own.

I prayed for light; the sun went down in clouds, The moon was darkened by a misty doubt, The stars of heaven were dimmed by earthly fears, And all my little candle flames burned out; But while I sat in shadow, wrapped in night, The face of Christ made all the darkness bright.

I prayed for peace, and dreamed of restful ease, A slumber free from pain, a hushed repose; Above my head the skies were black with storm, And fiercer grew the onslaught of my foes; But while the battle raged, and wild winds blew, I heard His voice and perfect peace I knew.

I thank You, Lord, You were too wise to heed My feeble prayers, and answer as I sought, Since these rich gifts Your bounty has bestowed Have brought me more than all I asked or thought; Giver of good, so answer each request With Your own giving, better than my best. ANNIE JOHNSON FLINT

What a contrast there is between a barren desert and the luxuriant oasis with its waving palms and its glorious verdure! Between gaunt and hungry flocks and the herds that lie down in green pastures and beside the still waters; between the viewless plain and the mountain height with its “land of far distances.”

What a difference there is between the aridity of an artificial, irrigated, stinted existence—a desert existence—and a life of abundant rains, crowding vegetation, and harvests that come almost of themselves— the abundant life!

The former is like the shallow stream where your boat every moment touches bottom or strikes some hidden rock; the latter is where your deep keel never touches ground, and you ride the ocean’ s wildest swells!

There are some Christians who always seem to be kept on scant measure. Their spiritual garment s are threadbare, their whole bearing that of people who are poverty-stricken and kept on short allowance—h ard up, and on the ragged edge of want and bankruptcy . They come through “by the skin of their teeth” and are “saved so as by fire.”

There are other souls who “have life . . . to the full.” Their love “alw ays protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” and “never fails” (1 Corin thians 13:7, 8). Their patience has “longsuf fering with joyfulness” (Colossians 1:11 KJV). Their peace “transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Their joy is “inexpressible and glorious” (1 Peter 1:8). Their service is so free and glad that duty is a delight. In a word, this life reaches out into the infinite as well as the eternal, sailing on the shoreless and fathomless seas of God and His infinite grace.

Oh, wher e is such a life to be found? How can the desert place be made to bring forth life to the full?

“Oh, wher e is the sea?” the fishes cried, As they swam the crystal waters thr ough “We have hear d from of old of the ocean tide, And we long to look on the waters blue. The wise ones speak of the infinite sea— Oh, who can tell us if such ther e be?”

Are we who live in the sea of the infinite to imitate those silly fishes, and ask, “Wher e is the God who is ‘not far from every one of us,’ who may be in our inmost hearts by faith, and in whom ‘we live, and move, and have our being’?” (Acts 17:27–28 KJV). D EAN FARRAR

“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea?” (Job 38:16).

The psalmist said: “With you is the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9). “All my fountains are in you” (Psalm 87:7).

Gushing Fountains!