A dear missionary friend told of a simple experience that meant much to him. We were walking together in the town in Korea where his mission work is. His school was the centre of the recent troublous times in Korea, and the storm seemed to rage about his own person at its outburst. As we talked all his native teachers and several of his older students were in prison. The experience he told me was of earlier days in this country, but had come back to his memory as a great refreshment during the troublous times.
He was a professor in a small college in our Middle West. Special funds were being raised, for extension. He was to ask a certain man of wealth for a large donation. He planned and prayed much, and at last went to see the man in another city by appointment. He had a keen sense of the responsibility of his task.
As he entered the building where the man"s office was he was greeted cordially by a young man whom he remembered as a former student, to whom he had been friendly in some time of minor need. But he had not connected him in his mind with this wealthy man, whose son he was. Now as the former student learned of his professor friend"s errand, he said with all the confidence of a son on good terms with his father:
"Come right in; father"s here."
As they stepped into the man"s office the son said, simply:
"Father, this is an old friend of mine. He"s all right. Give him whatever he wants."
And the father, busy at his desk, with barely a look at the appointed visitor, reached one hand over for his checkbook, and simply said:
"How much do you want?"
My friend, taken completely by surprise at the unexpected turn of events, managed to name the large sum he had been thinking and praying over so much. And before he could quite recover from his surprise, he found himself outside walking up the street with the coveted check in his pocket, praising G.o.d for such an answer to his prayers. It had been years before, but as we walked and talked it all came back with a fresh flush of feeling.
The present is a waiting time. It may seem to some as though they are in the wilderness. Clear and distinct comes a quiet voice:
"What"ll you have? Whatever you choose to ask, for My Son"s sake."
May we reach out to take as much as He is reaching down to give. But the taking must be with the life.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Isaiah xiii.-xxiv.
[108] Jeremiah xlvi.-li.
[109] Ezekiel xxv.-x.x.xii., x.x.xviii.-x.x.xix.
[110] Daniel, throughout, notably vii.-xii.
[111] The book of Isaiah falls naturally into two parts, chapters i.-xl., and xli.-lxvi. The historical allusions in each make it quite clear that these two parts belong in two periods far apart. One hundred and eighty years intervene between the close of the time stated in Isaiah"s first chapter as the period of his ministry and the beginning of the return from exile into which the second part fits.
But the full inspiration of the second part is in no wise affected. This rarely Spirit-controlled man modestly or unconsciously withholds his name from his writings. And they are grouped by the old Hebrew compilers with those of Isaiah.
[112] Isaiah ii. 2-4.
[113] Isaiah xi. 1-9; x.x.xii. 1-6.
[114] Micah iv. 1-8.
[115] Isaiah xi. 11-16; xxvii. 12-13.
[116] Zechariah xii. 10-14.
[117] Jeremiah x.x.xi. 8-19, 33, 34.
[118] Isaiah xxvi. 19; Daniel xii. 2.
[119] Micah iv. 1-2.
[120] Isaiah xxv. 7
[121] Isaiah iv. 2-5.
[122] Isaiah xxiv. 1-13, 17-20; ii. 12-19; Micah vii. 15-17.
[123] Zechariah xii. 1-9; xiv. 1-2.
[124] Isaiah xiii. 1-13.
[125] Zechariah xiv. 1-8.
[126] Isaiah xxiv. 21-22; xxvii. 1.
[127] Jeremiah x.x.x. 7-8.
[128] Daniel xii. 1.
[129] Matthew xxiv.-xxv; Mark xiii; Luke xxi.
[130] Matthew xxiv. 21, 29.
[131] Mark xiii. 19.
[132] Revelation vii. 14 literally.
[133] Leviticus xxvi. 14-39.
[134] Deuteronomy xxviii. 15-68.
[135] Deuteronomy x.x.xii.
[136] Daniel iii.
[137] Chapters vi.-vii.
[138] Chapter xix.
[139] Isaiah ii. 10-22.
[140] II Corinthians i. 22; Ephesians i. 13; iv. 30.
[141] Isaiah ii. 2.