01.03. In Conclusion

Chapter 3 - IN CONCLUSION

Therefore upon the outside of the door to your chamber of prayer write these words, “GO IN.” And when the fever of life is burning in your blood: when its rush and outward tumult are stilling the inward voice of God in your soul: when its fret and friction are wearing your tired nerves into impatience and petulence: when the flesh in all its pettiness is in imminent danger of controlling your spirit, words and acts, and of bringing you into the place of humiliation and sore defeat-then it is high time to obey those golden words and - GO IN. And then on the inside of that same closet door of communion do not fail to write, in imagination, those other simple words - “GO OUT.” For you may find such blessing as you go in to study the Book that you would like to tarry there always: or the gathering of the saints in some upper chamber may be so precious that you are loath to leave it: or the secret place of prayer has so refreshed your heart that you would fain spend your busy days wholly in supplication. But then it is that you need also to “go out.” Only thus can you keep in loving, helpful touch with a suffering world that needs Christ through you. Only thus can your Christian life be kept sweet, wholesome, practical, free from eccentricities and perils which attach to the life of the recluse and the dreamer. For here lies the balanced life: the life which “finds pasture” - the life which grows rich and steady, and strong in the Lord. It is the life which not only goes in to receive from God, but goes out to give to men. THE END