Our Cherith, F.B. Meyer. Hide Yourself by the Brook Cherith.
1st Kings 17.3. God's servants must be taught
the value of the hidden life. The man who is to take a high
place before his fellows must take a low place before his God. We must not be surprised if sometimes
our father says, there child, you have had enough of this hurry
and publicity and excitement. Get hence and hide yourself by
the brook. Hide yourself in the cherith
of the sick-chamber, Or in the cherith of bereavement, Or in
some solitude from which the crowds have ebbed away. Happy
is he who can reply, This, your will, is also mine. I flee unto
you to hide me, Hide me in the secret of your tabernacle, And
beneath the covert of your wings. Every saintly soul who would
wield great power with men must win it in some hidden charioth. The acquisition of spiritual
power is impossible unless we can hide ourselves from men and
from ourselves in some deep gorge where we may absorb the power
of the Eternal God, as vegetation through long ages absorbed these
qualities of sunshine, which it now gives back through burning
coal. Passing back to the blessed age
from which we date the centuries. Patmos, the seclusion of the
Roman prisons, the Arabian desert, the hills and valleys of Palestine,
are forever memorable as the holy chariots of the New Testament
disciples. Our Lord found His chariots at
Nazareth, in the wilderness of Judea, amid the olive groves
of Bethany, and the solitude of Gadara. None of us, therefore,
can dispense with some chariot, where the sounds of human voices
are exchanged for the waters of quietness which are fed from
the throne of God, and where we may taste the sweets and imbibe
the power of a life hidden with Christ.