The Master Weaver

The following is a journal entry by Martha Wing, dated April 30, 1898.

What a strange contradiction is a human being, with its weak will and strong desire! We least wish for that which is the easiest to obtain, and that which is the farthest from us is the object of our greatest longings.

Who is satisfied with the obtainable? Who would admire an edelweiss growing in a home-garden?

There is no satisfied ambition in this life. He who at morn sighed to reach a distant mountain height stands at noon on the sought-for pinnacle and turns his longing eyes to higher and more difficult ascents and plans to reach them at even. (Fortunate is he if the even comes to him.)

Do the duty that lies nearest. The easiest advice in the world and the most difficult to follow! How much pleasanter to ignore that familiar, tiresome work close at hand and reach for something higher, of more seeming importance! How often we do so, and how miserable the result!

I have been thinking today how easily we may pass by longed-for opportunities. We have some pet ambition, some desire that we see no way of gratifying. Unseen forces are at work; a strong Hand takes the thread of our life and weaves in and out and turns it here and twists it there, until all unknown it has almost reached the longed-for goal.

Then our willful selves take a hand. Some little question of right or wrong comes up. It is such a little thing, and desire is strong. We take the thread from the Hand and weave with our untrained fingers, for such a little way. But the pattern is wrong just in one place, so small a place no one will ever notice. It does not matter, or it does not seem to matter. But the Great Weaver knows we have woven out and around and beyond the longed-for position, and the opportunity is gone by forever.

When our spirits look back on that woven tapestry of life and read the pattern as it was intended, I wonder how many places will be woven wrongly, how many neglected oppor­tunities will show, how well or how ill will appear the finished work.

I often think about this tapestry of life and wonder if the pattern is all laid and planned. Perhaps it is a beautiful, bright-colored pattern, flower-strewn and garlanded; per­haps it has soft greys and tans; perhaps it is dark and sombre. I fancy the warp and woof is all ready, just so much for each tapestry, colors all selected, pattern all planned. Under the Master Weaver we begin our work slowly and painstakingly. Every line and curve of the pattern is known to Him; there can be no mistake when He guides the threads.

And the tapestry is begun. Bit by bit, day in, day out, the work goes on; some portion of the pattern is finished. But mayhap the colors are dull at first. Our nearsighted eyes cannot see nor understand the meaning nor the beauty of the great plan as a whole. We chafe and fret as we watch the work go on. We cry that our lives must have some brightness, there must be some beauty in that growing pattern.

Alas! if our discontent becomes too great, and we take away the thread from the Master’s guidance. Here, where the Lord sought to have us weave a grey, we substitute a rose-color. That is delightful; how great an improvement is our way upon His. We weave on gleefully for awhile; then comes the discord. The rose-color, woven in, never to be released, after all does not harmonize with its surroundings.

Looking back, we see what we could not see before ‘tis done, that the change we have made has spoiled the pat­tern. Desperately, we strive to remedy the mistake. With­out reflection, without comprehension, without higher help, we try one color and then another, but as fast as one is woven in we see some other would have been better. So we weave on, adding mistake to mistake in a miserable effort to rectify the first. How many tire, at last, and give up all effort to make a fair piece of work. Despairingly or indifferently they gaze backward at the soiled and ruined tapestry, or look forward to the future with no desire or effort to improve upon the past.

Others, working with a desperate defiance, cry, “We will make the life-tapestry beautiful. We will enjoy these beauti­ful colors that lie at hand.” And they weave them all in. After a time the brighter colors are gone; they have used them all; and oh! what endless measures of sombre colors must be woven in with no brightening tints to cheer the weary workers. In vain they cry out at the hardness of their fate. They have enjoyed their sunshine all in one long day; now come the shadows.

Or again, I fancy the weaver growing impatient of the slowness of the work, weaving double threads of brilliant colors, breaking, snarling, entangling them, and, too, life’s best forces are sapped, the threads give out, the pattern lies unfinished, the weaver’s hand is still.

Perhaps, when the work is done, the weaver, looking back at his work, cries unto his Master, “Why need my life have been so wretched? Look at the ruined tapestry with its hideous combination of colors. Was it for this that You taught me the art? Was it for this You placed me at the loom of Life?” And the Master Weaver answers, “Nay, not so; fair and good was the tapestry I planned for you. See, here is the pattern as it would have been under My guid­ance. Out of your own willful pride came that piece of weaving you despise.”

But I fancy there are those who, when they have first learned their own weakness, looking at their work, cry, “Our Master, we have done ill. We cannot weave without Thy help. We cannot understand Thy plan. We know our work is wrong, all wrong. The tapestry is ruined. Were it not better to drop the threads and destroy what is done?”

But the Master, looking down at the pitiful results of human weakness, smiles. “Nay, My child, you have made mistakes, but your work is not ruined. Know you not that, ‘out of evil, good may come’-” And, “all things work to­gether for the good of them that love the Lord? Are not all things possible to Thy God? Can I not make even sin turn to My glory? ‘Tis true, the wrong is done, but My skill can weave the threads remaining until, altho’ the pattern is changed, it need not be less beautiful.”

Then, under His guidance the human weaver begins again, toilingly, taught care and patience by his earlier carelessness.

And the tapestry grows strong and fair and beautiful, and we, looking on, cannot see the one spot where the weaver erred. It is forgiven and forgotten by the Great Master, but the weaver knows, and knows too, that from that early error good has come, because, at once the faulty threads were put in the Master’s Hands, for He alone could use them aright.

Transcribed from chapter 8 of Radiant Glory: The Life of Martha Wing Robinson, by Gordon P. Gardiner.

The Door of Humility

Have you ever been misunderstood? I hear you laughing at the absurdity of such a question. Or perhaps you cannot laugh about it yet.

A preacher I sat under as a child used to say that perhaps the greatest cross in our lives is when we are misunderstood. That preacher also said that we don't have the Holy Ghost's perspective on something until we can laugh about it.

I was misunderstood once. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend. [Pro. 27.6]" I repeated this to myself over and over, all the while wondering resentfully where exactly the faithfulness came in. "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head... [Ps. 141.5]" So I told myself, while clutching what felt like a broken head and wondering with what right this person should be considered among the righteous, after such a nasty mess.

It took months, years... a long time of slowly working through it to get to the real crux of the matter.

"There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. [Pro. 18.24]" A friend, not many friends. While Damian and I fondly quote that to each other to describe our own relationship, we are both aware that there is only one Friend who will never fall short. This is the Friend who wounded me. Another friend, with what he thinks are the best of intentions, can wound out of the corruption of his own heart; but the wounds of this Friend are always, faithfully, for our good.

Only when this Friend smites me, is it a kindness. Only when He reproves, is it an anointing oil. I have been rebuked by those who not only had no authority over me, but were entirely wrong in their assessment of the situation; and I have been rebuked by those who were truly speaking the Holy Spirit's wisdom to me. But in every case, it is the Lord Himself who allows the rebuff, and it is He, not man, who is the teacher -- and He is not always teaching the same lesson the human agent thought I needed to learn.

Moffat translates the latter half of Ps. 141.5 as, "I would pray ever to have their [the righteous'] goodwill." Why do I need to desire the goodwill of believers? So I asked myself as I pondered that verse in my pain of rejection and betrayal. That, however, is the wrong question. What I should be desiring is the goodwill of the only One Who is righteous, for without His goodwill, I cannot stand in His presence. It is this righteous Friend who smites me. "There is none righteous, no, not one [Rom. 3.10]" except the King of Glory Himself, and no blow can fall that is not sanctioned by His will. The NKJV translates, "...let my head not refuse it." Indeed, let me not refuse that anointing oil of rebuke from the King Himself, for it is His good opinion I desire, and no one else's. And His judgment is always redemptive. He does not expose except to correct the source of the problem.

Damian once told me that Cain's ultimate downfall was not that he brought fruit to the altar. It was not that he killed his brother. It was not even that he lied about it to God when He brought it up. By refusing to respect Cain's sacrifice, God was placing His finger on something in Cain that needed to be dealt with. The problem was that, instead of welcoming the redemptive judgment of the Lord -- for He never exposes sin without offering the antidote for it, therefore His judgment is always redemptive -- Cain became angry and his "countenance fell" (Gen. 4.5).

That is so often what we do when we feel the finger of the Lord touching something in us. Instead of saying, "Lord, what is it that you are showing me?" we try to bite the finger. We get angry. When I was so terribly misunderstood, that is exactly what I did. I got angry. My rights had been violated, and I was incredibly hurt. It was a long time before I understood that it was the Lord I was angry with. He had allowed this undeserved wrong, and in so doing He was putting His finger on something in me that I did not want shown up. It is funny how what comes to light often has little to do with the obvious circumstances. But we don't even have to know what it is in us that requires the purifying heat from the finger of God. What matters is how we respond to the finger.

The only appropriate response is to open ourselves up to His searching, that He may make us acceptable in His sight. If Cain had done that, there would have been no murder. Even if He had done it belatedly -- if, instead of saying, "My punishment is greater than I can bear, [Gen. 4.13]" he had said, "I know that this whole thing started because I did not want to hear what you had to say about my heart..." -- I believe that the end of the story would have been very different.

But opening ourselves up to that faithful Friend requires humility. Cora Harris MacIlravy, in the third chapter of her wonderful, out-of-print exposition of the Song of Solomon, Christ and His Bride (which I was amazed to find transcribed on the web), speaks of some of the chambers into which the King brings us. In order to go on at all with the Lord, we must enter the chamber of Humility. The door of this chamber is very small and low, and to enter it we must stoop and crawl. No one wants to do that. We will try to find any other way before we will lie down and creep on our bellies into that place of humility. There are times when I have asked the Lord to humble me, and in response He, in His mercy, has knocked me to my hands and knees in front of this door. But it's a peculiar thing that it is not enough to grovel in the dust outside the door. We actually have to crawl through it.

This is what seemed so impossible to Cain. It is what I wanted to refuse to do so long ago when my Friend afflicted me through the hand of someone else I thought was a friend. Like Cain, when God warned him that to open the door to sin would mean that "unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him [Gen. 4.7]," I want to hoard my sin away, to protect it from the exposing Light of the Word. Only recently I found myself on my knees once again in front of that ubiquitous door, angry with the Friend who had afflicted me and crouching protectively over the secret places of my domain. I knew that I was going nowhere until I released my right to rule over myself and, clinging to the feet of my true King, began to crawl on my belly through that doorway.

This is the cross. The servant is not above his lord. [Ma. 10.24] Our Lord was misunderstood. He was wounded by those who called themselves His friends. He was rebuked and reviled by those who had not the smallest claim over Him. Why are we always so astonished when we are asked to stoop down in the dust and follow our Forerunner as He takes His cross upon His bleeding back and stoops down to enter through a door impossibly low? Why are we so indignant when someone misunderstands us, when not one person on this earth grasped what our Lord was really about? "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. [Ps. 119.71]"

When, through the enabling power of the blood of the Lamb, we finally stoop to enter, we discover that the place of Humility is one of the loveliest of all the chambers in the King's house. There we find the Holy Ghost's perspective. There we find laughter. There we find the Cross.

Your hands made me and formed me;
give me understanding to learn your commands.
May those who fear you rejoice
when they see me,
for I have put my hope in your word.

I know, O LORD, that your laws are righteous,
and in faithfulness You have afflicted me.
May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise
to your servant.

Let your compassion come to me
that I may live,
for your law is my delight.
May the arrogant be put to shame
for wronging me without cause;
but I will meditate on your precepts...

- Ps. 119.73-78