Give Him the keys

‘Well,’ I inquired, ‘How can I be like you?’ He replied, ‘Have you ever given yourself to Christ, for Christ to fill you?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I have done so in a general way, but I don’t know that I have done it particularly.’

He answered, ‘You must do it particularly also.’ I knelt down that night, and thought I could give myself to Christ as easily as possible. I gave Him an iron ring, the iron ring of my will, with all the keys of my life on it, except one little key that I kept back.

And the Master said, ‘Are they all here?’ I said, ‘They are all there but one, the key of a tiny closet in my heart, of which I must keep control.’ He said, ‘If you don’t trust Me in all, you don’t trust Me at all.’

I tried to make terms; I said, ‘Lord, I will be so devoted in everything else, but I can’t live without the contents of that closet.’ I believe that my whole life was just hovering in the balance, and if I had kept the key of that closet, and mistrusted Christ, He never would have trusted me with the ministry of his blessed Word.

He seemed to be receding from me, and I called Him back and said, ‘I am not willing, but I am willing to be made willing.’

It seemed as though He came near and took that key out of my hand, and went straight for the closet. I knew what He would find there, and He knew too. Within a week from that time He had cleared it right out. But He filled it with something so much better!

Why, what a fool I was! He wanted to take away the sham jewels, to give me the real ones. He just took away the thing which was eating out my life, and instead gave me Himself. Since then I have reckoned on Him to keep; but full consecration is a necessary condition of any deep experience of His keeping power.”

Norman Grubb, C T Studd