The simplest and most commonplace truths concerning our relations with God are the very ones that have in them an infinite depth. As we advance in the upper ranges of the spiritual life, these old-fashioned, simple truths grow on us more than any others. They open up in undreamed-of vastness of beauty and strength and heart-nourishment.  

Our dependence on God is a truth that we think we understand at the beginning of the Christian life. But after we have been converted and sanctified and have passed through many ordeals of trials, and entered into the deeper death of the creature-life, it is then that this commonplace truth of our absolute weakness, and our momentary dependence on God opens itself to us.  

One great difficulty in stating a spiritual truth is that we have to use the same words with regard to it, both in its beginning and its perfection. But the same words we use at one time of life do not contain a thousandth part of the idea which the same words have to us in later years. The whole question of salvation and of our progress in the Divine life lies wrapped up in the measure to which we realize our own utter helplessness, our nothingness and demerit, and in the measure which we realize the companion truth of the all- sustaining, all-sufficient love and grace of God poured out to us through His Son Jesus.  

Sin inverts and reverses the action of all the faculties in their relation to God. The life-work of fallen nature is forever putting self in place of God. It puts self-strength in the place of God’s power. It contends for the rights of self, when in reality we have no rights in the universe, except such as our loving Creator lends to us out of His own proprietorship of us.  

When we are Divinely illuminated, we see innumerable instances, almost every day, where the creature puts himself in the place of God—in thought and reason, in the conduct of business, in expressing opinions, in judging of others, in petty self-justification, in driving at selfish ends, in measuring by creature standards. In countless forms and ways we see the lack of that deep consciousness of our littleness and dependence which should abide with us, and so saturate us with a gentle, quiet self-abnegation, as perfectly befits such tiny things as we, who are floating in a sea of creative Omnipotence.  

It takes a long time for the operations of grace to get us soaked through and through with the truth of our createdness. Persons, in seeking pardon or holiness, often cry out in their distress, “Oh, I am so weak; I have no strength. What shall I do?” Such souls have not learned that their very salvation and perfection in grace is hinged upon that sense of utter strengthlessness. The helplessness they see at that time is nothing to the extent they will see it as they get farther away from the self-life, and sink into deeper union with God.  

Our sweetest union with the blessed Holy Spirit depends on the ever-increasing sense of our dependence on Him. In reality our dependence on our Heavenly Father is always extending and intensifying. For just look at it. He raised us up out of nothing, and created us by His own love and power, but it takes the same Omnipotent love in exercise every moment to preserve us in existence. And if we owe God an infinite debt of gratitude and worship for having brought us into existence, then certainly the longer He keeps us in existence the more that debt is increasing, so that for every breath we draw we are owing to our God a perpetual, growing obligation of love and obedience.  

In one sense the Lord is forever creating us, for our momentary sustenance is only a prolongation of that act of creation. In addition to this, the more we grow in size, intelligence, and responsibility, the more we need of God, the more we draw upon His sympathy and compassion and wise providence.  

A whale is more dependent on the ocean than a minnow. It has greater needs, occupies more space, and draws more largely upon the resources of the sea. In like manner a mature saint or angel fills a larger space in the moral universe, draws deeper draughts from God, and calls into exercise greater degrees of creative skill and love and Divine communion, so that he is more extensively and intelligently dependent upon his God than an infant or a darkened soul living in sin.  

God has so fashioned us by a sweet necessity of love, that our very growth in grace, and obedience and moral magnitude makes us realize our dependence the more. This produces a paradox that the larger we grow the smaller we feel, and the more we drink ourselves full of the Christlife, the more thoroughly dependent are we upon that life. God has so created man in his relation to all things, as to force upon him this truth of utter dependence. He will not allow the wisest and strongest of men to accomplish anything in agriculture, art, science, invention or religious experience without revealing to him his insufficiency to accomplish his end without the intervention of a higher power. In everything a creature undertakes, he can only go so far, and then he must sit down and wait for his infinite Creator to step in and finish the process.  

Man’s arm is never quite long enough to reach the end he seeks, without the intervention of God. There is always a chasm between what the creature can do, and the end to be achieved, which God alone can bridge. Man is forever on the point of failing, and God is always coming to his rescue. Man is always reaching the end of his resources, and God is always supplementing them by His opportune, thoughtful, loving and wise operations, either in the form of natural law or in the blessed operations of the Holy Spirit. Between the labor and reward, God always leaves a space where He alone can intervene, and build Himself a monument of merciful helpfulness.  

This truth is pungently expressed in those words of the Holy Spirit, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor riches to men of understanding.” In every possible way that men can act, God is forever compelling them to fall back on Him for the accomplishment of their ends. Poor blind men can call this fortune, or chance, or law, or fate, because they are not illuminated, and do not see the all-pervading presence of a boundless, loving will, moving in every atom and in every moment.  

When the sinner has repented and forsaken all his sins, and done everything he can do, he finds he must cease from his own works and let the will of God finish out the process and save his soul. When a child of God is thirsting after holiness, and has yielded every atom and possibility of his being forever up to Jesus, he finds he can do no more, but to quietly and helplessly sink into the fathomless waters of God’s loving will, and let God cleanse and fill up to the measure of the promise.  

And this same lesson must be learned over and over again in so many directions. It must be learned in Divine healing, in matters of temporal support, in the manifold providences of God, until every part of our lives is woven through and through with the golden thread of our utter, and momentary, and minute, and intelligent, and endless, and affectionate dependence upon our Heavenly Father. When we are perfectly possessed of this feeling, it becomes the deepest joy of our existence. Not the thought merely, but the all-pervading consciousness of helplessly reclining upon God, brings us into fellowship with the three Persons of the Godhead and gives us a continual vision of His presence in every part of nature and providence. Out of this profound feeling we learn the Heavenly art of recollection and momentary cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  

There is no joy like that of feeling our nothingness, and at the same time reposing sweetly, like an infant, upon God.