Think of it! Thirty years at home with His brothers and sisters who did not believe in Him! We fix on the three years which were extraordinary, and forget altogether the thirty years of absolute submissiveness.

“An extraordinary exhibition of submissiveness! And the disciple is not above his master” (Matthew 10:24 KJV).

If God is putting you through a spell of submission, and you seem to be losing your individuality and everything else, it is because Jesus is making you one with Him.

Let Dr. A. J. Gossip, the great gifted Scottish preacher, tell us how once on a day in France, the bonniest of experiences befell him.

He had been for weeks amid the appalling desolation and sickening sights of the war front. Then they had gone back to rest where there were budding hedgerows, a shimmer of green on living trees, grass, and flowers—glorious flowers in the first splendor of spring. It seemed Heaven! Then came the order to return to Passchendaele and the battlefront.

“It reached us,” says Dr. Gossip, “on a perfect afternoon of sunshine; and with a heart grown hot and hard I turned down a little land with a brown burn wimpling beside it and a lush meadow—all brave sheets of purple and golden flowers—on either side. The earth was very beautiful, and life seemed very sweet, and it was hard to go back into the old purgatory and face death again. And, with that, through the gap in the hedge there came a shepherd laddie tending his flock of some two dozen sheep.

He was not driving them in our rough way, with two barking dogs. He went first, and they were following him; if one loitered he called it by name and it came running to him. So they moved on down the lane, up a little hill, up to the brow and over it, and so out of my life. I stood staring after them, hearing as if the words were spoken aloud, to me first, and to me only: “And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them” (John 10:4 KJV).

Peter, outworn, And menaced by the sword, Shook off the dust of Rome; And, as he fled, Met one, with eager face, Hastening cityward, And, to his vast amaze, It was the Lord.

“Lord, whither goest Thou?” He cried, importunate; And Christ replied, “Peter, I suffer loss, I go to take thy place, To bear thy cross.”

Then Peter bowed his head, Discomforted; Then, at the Master’s feet, Found grace complete, And courage, and new faith, And turned, with Him To death.

JOHN OXENHAM