Safe...

A life is not safe in itself unless it is surrendered to God. Neither are the things which He permits or brings to us, unless they first go through His hands. That is why He calls us so many times to surrender certain things to Him, and we have a terrific time, as we say, dying our death and surrendering the things to God. That is necessary, but it isn't because He wants them. They can't enrich Him; they can't make Him more God because of it. The enrichment comes back as a reflex in us, because we have surrendered them. That which is most choice must be surrendered to Him to its death so that it can come back again safe and sound in its resurrection --in time, when we are ready. He only wants them in His hands: the cleansing medium. We bring the quivering sacrifice which is torn from our hearts, and we think we will die because of it, and we put it with trembling hands into the hands of God. He says, "Thank you.'' Now that kiss of God upon the sacrifice takes the danger element out of it, and when He gives it back it is safe. Sometimes, though, He keeps it.

So if He sees it is wholesome for us to have it, He cancels the danger point by bringing us to a place of surrender where we can allow it to go to its death. Then He says, "Thank you, I don't want it, really, you can have it." Unless it goes through His hands first, it is still a dangerous element for us to have. Paul, in order to actually maintain what God desired in his pattern, had to SUFFER the loss to make it good. "If there be first a "willing spirit" over a situation, IT {that willing spirit) is accepted as though the whole deed were done. To one He says, "You are not safe with it; it is not good for you; you give that to Me:' To another He says, "I can trust you with it. I have not come to rob; I have come to give LIFE -- and that more abundantly."