But how many of us there
are who reject these opportunities and lose the good they brought for
us from God! Then one by one the doors are shut, cutting off the
proffered favors while we go on unblessed.
There is another closing of doors which is even sadder than any of
those which have been suggested. There is a shutting of our own
heart's door upon God himself. He stands at our gate and knocks and
there are many who never open to him at all, and many more who open the
door but slightly. The latter, while they may receive blessing, yet
miss the fulness of divine revealing which would flood their souls with
love; the former miss altogether the sweetest benediction of life.
"He that shuts Love out in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on his threshhold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Nor for this
Was common clay made from the common earth,
Moulded by God and tempered with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man."
This sad sound of closing doors, as it falls day after day upon our
soul's ears, proclaims to us continually that something which was ours,
which was sent to us from God, and for which we shall have to answer in
judgment, is ours no longer, is shut away forever from our grasp. It
is a sad picture--the five virgins standing at midnight before a closed
door through which they might have entered to great joy and honor, but
which to all their wild importunity will open no more.
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