Our Cherith

(F.B. Meyer)

"Hide yourself by the brook Cherith" 1 Kings 17:3

God's servants must be taught the value of the hidden life. The man who is to take a high place before his fellows — must take a low place before his God. We must not be surprised if sometimes our Father says: "There, child, you have had enough of this hurry, and publicity, and excitement; get hence, and hide yourself by the brook — hide yourself . . .
  in the Cherith of the sick chamber, or
  in the Cherith of bereavement, or
  in some solitude from which the crowds have ebbed away."

Happy is he who can reply, "This Your will is also mine; I flee unto You to hide me. Hide me in the secret of Your tabernacle, and beneath the covert of Your wings!"

Every saintly soul who would wield great power with men, must win it in some hidden Cherith. The acquisition of spiritual power is impossible, unless we can hide ourselves from men and from ourselves, in some deep gorge where we may absorb the power of the eternal God; as vegetation through long ages absorbed these qualities of sunshine, which it now gives back through burning coal.

Passing back to the blessed age from which we date the centuries: Patmos; the seclusion of the Roman prisons; the Arabian desert; the hills and valleys of Palestine — are forever memorable as the holy Cheriths of the new testament disciples.

Our Lord found His Cheriths at Nazareth; in the wilderness of Judea; amid the olive groves of Bethany; and the solitude of Gadara.

None of us, therefore, can dispense with some Cherith, where the sounds of human voices are exchanged for the waters of quietness, which are fed from the throne of God; and where we may taste the sweets and imbibe the power of a life hidden with Christ.
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