I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked... But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go. (John 21:18 NLT)
There is no safe place,
apart from the constant application of the principle of the Cross. Safety
absolutely demands it. Nothing is safe in our hands. The more the Lord blesses,
the more peril there is. The greatest peril comes when the Lord begins to use
us.... It is a most perilous thing to be entrusted with
Divine riches, so far as our flesh is concerned. The only safe place is where
the Cross is still at work, touching all that is ourselves, touching all our
independence of action.
Take all these Apostles – take Peter, a man who would act so independently,
who liked to do things on his own and do what he wanted to do. We find it
cropping up constantly. He is the man who acts without stopping to ask anybody.
We have no hint that he ever got into fellowship with his brother disciples and
said, "I am thinking of doing so and so; I would very much like you to pray with
me about it, and to tell me what you think; I have no intention of going on
unless there is one mind among us." Peter never did that sort of thing. He got
an idea, and off he went. The Lord summed him up very well when He said: "When
thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but
when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall
gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not" (John 21:18). That was
Peter before the Cross was in-wrought in him. But see him afterwards... "Peter
and John," "Peter and John," "Peter and John." Well, they are moving together
now, there is relatedness. Is it an acknowledgment that Peter felt his need of
cooperation and fellowship, that he had seen the perils and disasters into
which independent action led him, even when his intentions and motives were of
the best? These are just glimpses of how the Cross touches us in our impulsive,
independent nature, our self-will, our self-strength. The Cross has to deal with
all that to make things safe for God, and to keep us moving in the way of
increasing knowledge of the Lord, which, as we have said, lies behind all our
value to the Lord, all our usefulness, all our service.