The word interference comes from two Latin words, inter, between, and faceo, to make, or to work. Hence Divine interference covers the vast range of creation in which God mingles His operations with those of His creatures, and always leaves a space between creature and creature, and between causes and effects, and between the visible and invisible, and between the known and unknown, and between Spiritual and material things. Here He reserves the absolute right to work as it may please Him, without destroying the free agency of His moral creatures. There is no study in all the universe like the study of God, for it is ever fresh, and fascinating, and fathomless to our understanding.  

To all eternity God will be an unfathomable ocean of unknown wonder to us, and yet as fast as we learn anything of Him, it only increases our zest and capacity for learning more, and for more sweetly relishing what we do learn. Now, this trait in the Divine conduct of His minute, and incessant, and startling interference in all the realms of nature, providence, and grace furnishes a radiant field for our loving, prayerful thoughts.  

1. God always leaves a place for Himself to work in beautiful secrecy in every department of His kingdom. He does not fence Himself out from His own works. Some scientists teach that no two atoms of matter absolutely touch each other, but are sufficiently close together for cohesion. They argue this from the fact that water, or oil, or air, can be forced through nearly every known substance, and that it is now known by the X-ray that light as well as heat can go through everything in the world. Be that theory as it may, it is most certain that God has left a space between every personality, and every organic body, and every atom of substance, where He can erect His unseen throne, and sway an unfathomable sovereignty in every life, and every event. From the greatest to the least, He has carried forward His ceaseless superintendence without noise, without ostentation, but with most exact justice and tenderest fatherly love. When Moses wrought the ten plagues in Egypt, the devil’s ministers imitated the works of God, but when they came to the third plague of turning dust into lice, the magicians found it was beyond their depth, and they said, “this is the finger of God.”  

That Divine finger which had been working as it were under a glove, now became bare, so that the enemies of God had to recognize it. There is something significant in calling the special operation of God “His finger,” for it signifies pointedness, the concentration of God’s power upon some given point, which is different from a universal miracle that spreads everywhere. The term, “finger of God,” also imports the personality of His interference, that He is a Person, that He deals with the personalities of His creatures and never gets them confused. The term also signifies the supernatural and special work of God, over and above the uniformity of natural law. While He has established uniform processes of cause and effect throughout the universe, He has not made the creation a cast iron machine, and bolted Himself outside, but has fixed it full of pores and secret avenues into which His omnipotence and wisdom can silently glide. At any instant He can touch the secret springs of the vast mechanism and interfere with changes, suspensions, or reversals, for purposes of righteousness and the showing forth of His glory.  

A man who denies the miracle-working power of God in His own creation knows nothing of God and very little of creation. When we look around us in nature we find everywhere instances where God has left ample space between apparent causes and effects, where He alone can work, and as it were fill in the gap for His poor, helpless creatures. In every direction of life the helplessness of man is seen in the fact that he is unable to accomplish any of his plans without unconsciously depending on the Creator to step in and help him out.  

Our strength is always falling short of the end we want to reach, and if it were not for God’s interference to supplement our efforts we could accomplish nothing on earth. By our will-power we can put food in our mouths and swallow it, and instantly it is beyond the reach of our volition. If God did not step in, and by His mechanism in the stomach, turn the food into blood, we should perish. By our will-power we can plow the ground and plant the seed, and then we have to stop and wait for our benevolent Creator to send the moisture and warmth and cause the sprouting and growing. Between the time that our will-power plants the seeds and gathers the grain, look at the great gap which God has filled in by His loving will through the pores of nature.  

This truth could be amplified into volumes. Take agriculture, science, invention, commerce, personal comfort in every direction in which we live and work, and notice how little it is that is accomplished by our actual will-power, and how much it is that God accomplishes. He is always, in a quiet and loving way, taking hold of our little efforts, and as it were lengthening them out, supplying all the deficiencies of our ignorance and weakness to accomplish mighty results! Then see how modestly He hides His hand behind the screen of what we call natural law, and allows poor little man to take the credit of doing the whole work. Hear him boast of how he made that crop, or how he ran that steamship across the ocean, or how he sent that telegraphic message, when, if the amount of actual human volition were taken out of the operation, it would leave more than ninety-nine per cent. of the entire process to have been accomplished by the Creator.  

2. In the realm of salvation God reserves to Himself a hidden laboratory. In all the hidden work of grace in the soul there is the same unexplored region of Divine interference which no created mind can pierce. Here He produces experiences according to His own will. We repent of our sins, and do what we can to right the wrongs of our past, and then commit ourselves to the mercy of Jesus Christ as the Scriptures direct us, and then we have reached the uttermost limit of our willpower in the matter. Then the “finger of God” comes into more distinct action, and works in us moral changes, spiritual experiences, and great revolutions of thought, and feeling, and energy, of which we could previously have no understanding. Notwithstanding all that we may learn about the grace of God in the new birth, when we are led onward to the great work of interior sanctification, it is in many respects just as much a new and unknown world of bewilderment as to how God will work as was that of conversion.  

We are all led by different paths, through unique testings and trials, and through crisis after crisis of giving up our will and way to God. It is like so many waterfalls which a stream passes over on its way from the mountain to the sea, till we reach the point of unconditional and unlimited abandonment and obedience to our Lord. Then the Holy Spirit, Who has been secretly leading us, breaks forth into a bright and powerful manifestation of His work, producing in us experiences of the very life of God of which we had no former conception.  

While these interior experiences seem to follow a general law, like the production of crops in nature, yet the infinite Spirit allows Himself ample room for numberless diversities of operations, in which He seems to work out a particular pattern of God’s life in every soul, and puts a private mark into everyone’s sanctification, so that no one shall be lost in the vast multitude. While God wants us to observe His laws He does not want us in bondage to His laws, but in sweet, private, personal captivity to Himself alone. Hence, while He works in the spiritual realm as in the physical by a general uniformity, yet He will not allow even His own established laws to prevent Him from breaking forth at any time, or place, with a special individual exercise of sovereignty. He chooses to work or not to work, to give or not to give, to produce this or that form of experience, to this or that soul, as it may please Him. There is a sphere for our free will in the making of a saint, just as in the making of a crop of grain, and the omnipotence of God does not fetter our free agency any more while working a field of holiness than in working a field of corn. Yet in both instances our free agency is limited and, beyond a certain point, if God does not step in and produce the results, nothing is accomplished.  

3. In what we call the realm of providence the Divine interference is often the most startling and impressive. It is in this department of His government that general law does not seem so rigidly established. The Holy Spirit tells us in Scripture that “the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, nor riches to men of understanding.” He gives us to understand that while, as a general rule, the relationship between certain causes and effects is so fixed that in most cases the strong do conquer, and the swift do win the race, and the clever man does make the money, yet the law is not infallible. Between these causes and effects, there is a mysterious space which God alone occupies, and where He exercises an infinite, sovereign, personal, minute, loving, impartial jurisdiction. Here, in answer to prayer, or in compassion to the poor and oppressed one, or for the purpose of punishing the wrong, or for the brilliant outshining of His glory, He can suddenly upset the machinery, or reverse the nature of cause and effect, and make the helpless one conquer the strong, and the lame take the prey, and the slow little cripple win the race, and the ignorant and feeble-minded acquire the wealth.  

There are five things that God takes delight in choosing as instrumental for His glory, which the world not only ignores, but does not understand how God can use them. They are the “foolish things” of the world, the “weak things,” the “base things,” the “despised things,” and the “things which are not.” Not only the world, but most Christians, are so accustomed to think that everything must be run by certain methods, that they make little or no allowance for the sudden or extraordinary supernatural interference of an Infinite Person, Who forever reserves to Himself the right to work as He pleases among angels, men, or devils, in nature, grace, or providence, and oftentimes to the utter confusion of theologians as well as philosophers.  

God is constantly doing things that people, even good people, supposed could not be done. He is lifting up those whom people thought could never be lifted. He is sanctifying those whom people thought were past redemption. He is mightily using those who were esteemed only the refuse of earth. He is answering prayers right against what was imagined to be a cast-iron law. He is bringing to nought things that looked as firm as Gibraltar. He is silently intersecting the deepest laid schemes. He turns the almost angelic wisdom of Ahithophel into confusion at the momentary cry of a broken-hearted man. He melts an iceberg with a tear, or congeals a wild, passionate soul with the glance of a helpless eye.  

Some modern houses are threaded all through with electrical appliances, so that a burglar lifting a window, or stepping on the carpet, may turn on the light, or ring the alarm bells. So God has threaded the universe, and all the social fabric with a secret, subtle vigilance, and the creature never knows at what moment a startling, supernatural, unexpected light or sound may break in upon him. We ought to know better and better, that if we are in perfect union with God, loving Him above every other love, and seeking to please Him above every other pleasure, all of His established laws, all of His interferences in creation, or in grace, will be for our good, our most tender protection, and our highest advancement.  

It is the vision of perfect faith, which apprehends this incessant and particular interference of God on our behalf, that enables us to rest quietly on His bosom, in spite of all the threatening aspects of outward things. It is this all-piercing, all quieting vision of faith which makes God like a great serene sunset to our souls.