Chapter 4

The Inner Life I

ONE by one the things which bind us to the world reveal themselves to the seeker as frauds and shams. They glitter and attract, but when we have paid a big price for them, they are found to be worthless and worse than useless.

One by one the dear earthly props, upon which we rested our hopes and pride, are removed, until we are left alone.

Alone with the fact that all earthly things fail to satisfy: that no human love or form can be held forever: that life itself is short and its little tide ebbing fast. “Change and decay in all around I see. Oh! Thou who changest not, Abide with me.’’

If in the outward life all is change and decay: if life itself is short and transient: if death threatens to put an end to all things; where then is that which is permanent, real and satisfying, and the life that fades not away?

This life is the inner life. God’s eternal life which can be possessed by the humble seeker, but which is not revealed to the proud and arrogant. “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. xviii, 3.) The kingdom of heaven is the inner life. “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall, they say: Lo here! or lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. (Luke xvii, 2.)

Everything connected with spiritual things seems to be in the form of a paradox. In order to find the real (or inner) life, the seeker has to lose or give up the only life of which he has any practical knowledge or experience. “He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.’’

By giving up the external life and its vanities, we find the inner life of the Spirit, which is eternal.

All life is wonderful. As we write this we are seated in the garden, and a “Daddy Long Legs’’ alights on our writing pad. He crawls over the paper as though to investigate the writing. What a wonderful piece of workmanship. What beautiful wings, what marvellous legs. Yet, how soon he dies! The daisies at our feet, how wonderful! Yet, how soon they fade! Wonderful? Yes. Beautiful? Yes. But where, O where, is the life that fades not away?

14

HENRY THOMAS HAMBLIN

THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT

Behind all changing form we find a life that persists and repeats. This is God’s life, but it is not the life we seek, for even this life, perpetual though it may appear to be, is not eternal. It will have an end when the universe is rolled up like a scroll, and heaven and earth pass away.

Paradoxically, while God is the author of all life and therefore, in one sense, all life is the life of God, yet the life that perishes is not, in another sense, God’s life, in that God’s eternal life transcends all lower forms of life. Creation is ever changing, yet behind it all stands the imperishable Idea, unaffected by time or change. This interior, permanent reality is what we all seek. Only let us find this pearl of great price and we shall be satisfied.

We can find the inner life of Eternal Being only by being born again of the Spirit. The Adam man is of the earth, earthy. The second man is the Lord from heaven.* We have to become as little children before we can enter the kingdom of heaven and win the crown of life which fadeth not away.

*”As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”(1 Cor. xv 22.)

We have to lose all our craft and worldly wisdom; all our arrogance and pride; all our love of pomp, power, show; all envy, hate, malice, covetousness; all claim, of ourselves, to know anything, to be able to do anything, to be anything. In other words, we have to surrender out torch of life to Christ. “O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee.’’

When we “lose” our life in this way, we discover the larger life of God—the life which alone satisfies, the life which alone is eternal. We lose nothing in reality— although we must be willing to lose all—for Christ fans the feeble spark of our torch into His own glorious flame, until Christ is all and in all. Then is Christ risen from the dead, in us, and we are raised to immortality in Him.

Our Lord is coming again. Not as a babe in weakness, but as a super-dimensional Being, Lord of Heaven and earth, who is able to appear “in the twinkling of an eye,” in power.

It is only those who have cultivated the inner life, who will be glad at His appearing.

“And every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him. And all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.”