You cry out for health, for safety, for all things to run smoothly, and these are not wrong desires in themselves, yet I would have you see that the ordering of your life must begin with the affections of your heart being fixed upon God in Christ. For it is written, “My Well-Beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.” That vineyard is your own nature, your own life, and He who has given you health and wealth has a claim upon them. Give God your health, then, while it lasts, and see that all His care of you is not thrown away. The law is not in the hand of Moses for you now, but in the hand and life of the Redeemer, this is the rule of life for a Christian. So set first things first, and let no part of your life be left to a random course.
But do you see the loving kindness of God in the temporal mercies that surround you even now? You may trace it in the very breath you draw and the place where your life is cast. Yet a well-ordered outward life is nothing if the well within is dry. What you most need is not only a smooth path, but the water which the Lord Jesus gives, which becomes in you a well springing up into everlasting life. That life is a continual and everlasting thing; it is the spiritual life, the Divine life, which Christ gives to His people. It runs no risk from the rust of quiet days or the cumber of active ones, for He did not save you for a time and then leave you. No, when you took Him to be your Saviour, you took Him for all your life and for eternity.
Let this be your soul’s resolve, then, even while you pray for outward safety: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. Order my steps in Your word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.” For outward safety is not found in the absence of trial, but in walking within the enclosures which God’s commandments have made. Every wreck you see in another’s life should be a beacon to your own soul, and your brother’s foot slipping upon a stone should make you watch your own steps. Temptation often comes most fiercely when you fancy it far off, and the very thought that you are not being tempted is itself a snare. Beware of presuming. Keep your eye on your Saviour, who sat wearied on the well at high noon, knowing in His own body what it is to be exhausted and pressed by the heat of the day. He knows all about His servant.
When you ask for things to run smoothly, remember that your true safety lies not in circumstances but in a life hid with Christ in God. If He makes your life green and fruitful, it is by the sap He supplies, not by any strength of your own, for that would be a spider’s web soon blown away. So let your cry be, “Put life into me, Lord, Your life, the Divine life, according to Your word. Hold me up, for if You do not, I fall indeed.” This life is elevating; it makes you a partaker of the Divine nature, and it is the same life here as it shall be there in glory. When the whole universe has gone and left not a wreck behind, it shall be well with you, for you have eternal life, an existence that will run parallel with the existence of the Deity.
Therefore, pray boldly for health and for daily mercies, yet seek first that inner well of living water. Let your regrets for any fruitlessness multiply into hopeful prayers. The vine may have changed, but the soil is the same, and the motives for holy living are greater than ever. Bring your life under rule, give each hour to its noblest end, and trust not in the doing, but in Him whose doing and dying are your only plea. Then in life and death, you may sing, “My days of praise shall never be past, while life and thought and being last, or immortality endures.”