During the French War of 1870, a train was carrying military dispatches from Metz to the headquarters of the French army. The Germans had just captured Metz, and were marching rapidly to cut off the French army. It was necessary that the dispatches should reach the post within an hour. The distance was 60 or 70 miles. The road was rough; the train consisted of a single coach and locomotive. The speed was like a whirlwind, and the passengers, consisting of the wife and child of the engineer, the bearer of the dispatches and a newspaper correspondent, were hurled around in the dashing, rushing train, like sailors in a frightful storm.
To say that they were alarmed would be little, for they were in imminent and deadly peril. Every moment threatened to pitch the furious train over some embankment or bridge. Rolling from side to side, leaping at times in the air, rushing, roaring on past stations, everything made way for this whirlwind of desperate speed and energy. The few people inside held their breath in dismay, and often cried out with terror as they dashed along. But there was one person on that car, the little child of the engineer, who knew nothing of their fears. Happy as a bird amid all the excitement around her, she laughed aloud in childish glee and merriment as often as the train would give some wild lurch and hurl her over a seat. When they looked at her in wonder, and her mother asked her if she was not afraid, she looked up and answered: "Why, my father is at the engine!"
A little later the engineer came through the car to cheer up his trembling wife. As he entered with great drops of sweat rolling down his soot-stained face, the little girl leaped into his arms and laid her head upon his bosom, as happy and peaceful as if she was lying on her little bed at home. What a picture of the perfect love that casts out fear! What a lesson for the children of the Heavenly Father!
Look at your little, lisping babe putting his hand in yours and letting you lead him where you, and learn to trust and love the Father who cannot err, forget or fail. This is the remedy for every fear - the fear of man, the fear of yourself, the fear of satan, the fear of death, the fear of falling, the fear of the future. Only love Him and rest in His love, and you will dwell safely and be quiet from the fear of evil.
What a life ours would be if we were fully saved from our fears! How many of our worst troubles are those that never come! God give us the perfect love that casts out fear!
The Secret of His Love
"Because in this world we are like him" (1 John 4:17). This love is the fruit of faith. It is the blossom that grows on the fair tree of trust. Its roots are in the very heart of Jesus. Its life is nourished by His very life and love. It is as we realize what He is to us and what we are to Him, that we enter into the fullness of His love.
There is no stronger statement anywhere in God's Word of our intimate and absolute union with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not mean that some day we shall be like Him, but here, and now, as He is, so are we in this world.
We are one with Him in His death. His death was our death, "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died" (2 Corinthians 5:14)
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 22)
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