How Jesus deals with us
Salvation is often accomplished by a lengthened process. I have heard that when builders wanted to bridge a great chasm, they shot across the river an arrow or a bullet that drew with it a tiny thread. That was all the communication from bank to bank, and the rolling torrent was far below. Despise not the day of small things! The insignificant beginning was prophetic of grand results. By means of that little thread they drew across a piece of twine. When they had safely grasped it on the other side, they bound a small rope to the end of twine, and they drew the rope across. Then to that rope they tied a cable, and they drew the cable across. And now over that chasm there strides an iron bridge, along which the train rattles with his mighty load.
So does Jesus unite us to Himself. He may employ at first an insignificant thread of thought, then a sense of pleasant interest, then some deeper feeling, then a crushing emotion, then a faint faith, then stronger faith, then stronger yet, until, as last, we come to be firmly bound to Christ. Be thankful if you have only a thread of communication between you and Jesus, for it will lead to more. Something more hopeful will be drawn across the gulf before long. Christ’s attractions are often very gradually revealed, and their victorious energy is not felt all at once.
The Power of the Cross of Christ
(Lynwood, WA: Emerald Books, 1995), 23-24
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