That
is, that only in obedience to Him do we find our real freedom. He is
constantly showering us with a tender generosity and kindness that
seems inconceivable, and sometimes it seems as if more often than
not we were refusing to see. Indeed we blind ourselves by making all
pains of body and faults of soul positive and our efforts against
them negative.
If we had a disagreeable habit which we wanted to conquer and asked
a friend to remind us with a pinch every time he saw the habit,
wouldn't it seem very strange if when he pinched us, according to
agreement, we jumped and turned on him, rubbing our arm with
indignation that he should have pinched? Or would it not be even
funnier if we made the pinch merely a reminder to go on with the
habit?
The Lord is pinching us in that way all the time, and we respond by
being indignant at or complaining at our fate, or reply by going
more deeply into our weaknesses of character by allowing them to be
positive and the pinches only to emphasize them to us.
One trouble is that we do not recognize that there is an agreement
between us and the Lord, or that we recognize and then forget it;
and yet there should be--there is--more than an agreement, there is
a covenant. And the Lord is steadily, unswervingly doing His part,
and we are constantly failing in ours. The Lord in His loving
kindness pinches--that is, reminds us--and we in our stupid
selfishness do not use His reminders.
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