Faith: Appropriating
Faith: Appropriating [1]
I once heard a father tell, that when he removed his family to a new residence, where the accommodation was much more ample, and the substance much more rich and varied than that to which they had previously been accustomed, his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran round every room, and scanned every article with ecstasy, calling out, in childish wonder at every new sight, 'Is this ours, father? and is this ours?' The child did not say 'yours,' and I observed that the father while he told the story was not offended with the freedom. You could read in his glistening eye that the infant's confidence in appropriating as his own all that his father had, was an important element in his satisfaction.
Such, I suppose, will be the surprise, and joy, and appropriating confidence, with which the child of our Father's family will count all his own, when he is removed from the comparatively mean condition of things present, and enters the infinite of things to come. When the glories of heaven burst upon his view, he does not stand at a distance, like a stranger, saying, 'O God, these are thine.' He bounds forward to touch and taste every provision which those blessed mansions contain, exclaiming, as he looks in the Father's face, 'Father, this and this is ours.' The dear child is glad of all the Father's riches, and the Father is gladder of his dear child.W. Arnot.
