| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 14 |
Page 8 |
Then the woman tells of giving her heart to Christ, and learning from him the secret of true friendship. The old jealousies had vanished. When she had a friend, she was kind and loving to her, and wanted everybody to love her. God had led her forth into a large place. She had a thousand times the joy she used to have in the old time narrow, exacting, suspicious friendship. She had enlarged the place of her tent. It was no longer a little place for our thin canvas walls, with room only for herself and one; it widened out until it was as wide as the love of Christ.
We cannot let Christ into our hearts without becoming broader in feeling, larger in interest, wide in hope, more generous in all ways. We have no right to be narrow. We should pray to be delivered from all narrowness in our friendships – in our heart life, our church life, our neighbourhood life, our school life, our social life. Look at Christ himself as the perfect One. He enlarged the place of his tent until it became as wide as the blue sky. Under its shelter all the wary, the lonely, the homesick, the suffering, and the sorrowing take refuge.
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