e which tells us that the very
things we are to do are prepared before, and we are "created in Christ
Jesus" to do them. If this is so, then will the doing of anything else
seem worth while, when we look back and see life as God sees it?

It may be that the things prepared are lying close at our hand at home,
but it may be they are abroad. If they are at home there will be settled
peace in the doing of them there; but if they are abroad, and we will
not come and do them?--Oh, then our very prayers will fall as fall the
withered leaves, when the wind that stirred them falls, yea more so, for
the withered leaves have a work to do, but the prayers which are stirred
up by some passing breeze of emotion do nothing, _nothing_ for eternity.
God will not hear our prayers for the heathen if He means us to be out
among them instead of at home praying for them, or if He means us to
give up some son or daughter, and we prefer to pray.

Lord save us from hypocrisy and sham! "Shrivel the falsehood" from us if
we say we love Thee but obey Thee not! Are we staying at home, and
praying for missions when Thou hast said to us "Go"? Are we holding back
something of which Thou hast said, "Loose it, and let it go"? Lord, are
we utterly through and through true? Lord God of truthfulness, save us
from sham! Make us perfectly true!

I turn to you, brothers and sisters at home! Do you know that if God is
calling you, and you refuse to obey you will hardly know how to bear
what will happen afterwards? Sooner or later you will know, yea burn
through every part of your being, with the knowledge that you
disobeyed, and lost your chance, lost it for ever. For that is the awful
part. It is rarely given to one to go back and pick up the chance he
knowingly dropped. The express of one's life has shot past the points,
and one cannot go back; the lines diverge.

"Some of us almost shudder now to think how nearly we stayed at home," a
missionary writes. "Do not, I beseech you, let this great matter drift.
Do not walk in uncertainty. Do not be turned aside. You will be
eternally the poorer if you do."

It may be you are not clear as to what is God's will for you. You are in
doubt, you are honest, but a thousand questions perplex you. Will you go
to God about it, and get the answer direct?

If you are puzzled about things which a straightforward missionary can
explain, will you buy a copy of _Do Not Say_, and read it alone with
God? Let me emphasise th