After Amy Carmichael finished the "IF" conditions of Calvary Love, she wrote seven further thoughts at the end of her book, "IF". I wish to copy them here, one at a time over the next few weeks. These are her words and as I didn't make any comments on her "IF" thoughts, I will leave no comment of my own on these further "thoughts." Amy speaks from her soul and may God use her words to speak to your soul.
1.
I have felt these words scorching to write, but it is borne upon me that, in spite of all our hymns and prayers (so many of them for love), it is possible to be content with the shallows of love, if indeed such shallows should be called love at all.
(Perhaps prayer often needs to be followed by a little pause, that we may have time to open our hearts to that for which we have prayed. We often rush from prayer to prayer without waiting for the word within, which says, "I have heard you, My child.")
The more we ponder our Lord's words about love, and the burning words the Spirit gave to His followers to write, the more acutely do we feel our deadly lack. The Searchlight of the Spirit exposes us to ourselves, and such a discovery leaves us appalled. How can even He who is the God of all patience have patience with us? Like Job we abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes.
But the light is not turned upon us to rob us of our hope. There is a lifting up. If only we desire to be purged from self with its entangling nets, its subtleties, its disguises (falsehoods truly), its facile showing of brass for gold, as the Tamil says; if, hating unlove from the ground of the heart, we cry to be delivered, then our God will be to us a God of deliverance.
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