l
and the spiritual world more simple, than that two bodies cannot at the
same moment occupy the same space. Only so much as the new occupant can
expel of what the space was filled with can it really possess. In man,
self has possession, and self-will the mastery, and there is no room for
God. It is simply impossible for God to dwell or rule when self is on
the throne. As long as, through the blinding influence of sin and
self-love, even the believer is not truly conscious of the extent to
which this self-will reigns, there can be no true contrition or
humility. But as it is discovered by God's Spirit, and the soul sees how
it has just been self that has been secretly keeping out God, with what
shame it is broken down, and how it longs to break utterly away from
self, that God may have His place! It is this brokenness, and continued
breaking down, that is expressed by the word contrition. And as the soul
sees what folly and guilt it has been, by its secret honouring of self,
to keep the Holy One from the place which He alone has a right to, and
which He would so blessedly have filled, it casts itself down in utter
self-abasement, with the one desire to be nothing, and to give God the
place and the praise that is His due.

Such breaking down and humiliation is painful. Its intense reality
consists in this, that the soul can see nothing in itself to trust or
hope in. And least of all can it imagine that it should be an object of
Divine complacency, or a fit vessel for the Divine blessing. And yet
just this is the message which the Word of the Lord brings to our faith.
It tells us that the Holy One, who dwells in the High and Lofty place,
is seeking and preparing for Himself a dwelling here on this earth. It
tells us, just what the truly contrite and humble never could imagine,
and even now can hardly believe, that it is even, that it is only, with
such that He will dwell. These are they in whom God can be glorified, in
whom there is room for Him to take the place of self and to fill the
emptied place with Himself. The Holy One seeks the humble. Just when we
see that there is nothing in us to admire or rest in, God sees in us
everything to admire and to rest in, because there is room for Himself.
The lowly one is the home of the Holy One.

_The humble find the Holy One._ Just when the consciousness of sin and
weakness, and the discovery of how much of self there is, makes you fear
that you can never be holy, the Holy One