e obedience must also include every
bit. A run out in a single direction may serve as a suggestion of many
others.

The law of my body, which obeyed brings or continues health is God's
will, as much as that which concerns moral action. Our bodies are holy
because God lives in them. Overwork, insufficient sleep, that imprudent
diet and eating which seems the rule rather than the exception,
carelessness of bodily protection in rain or storm or drafts or
otherwise:--these are sins against God's will for the body, and no one
who is disobedient here can ever be a channel of power up to the measure
of God's longing for us.

And so regarding all of one's life, one must ever keep an open mind
Godward so as to get a well balanced sense of what His will is. Practice
is the great thing here. This is school work. By persistent listening
and practising there comes a mature judgment which avoids extremes in
both directions. But the rule is this: cheery prompt obeying regardless
of consequences. Disobedience, failure to obey, is _breaking with our
Friend_.

These are the three keys which will let us into the innermost chambers
of friendship with God. And with them goes a _key-ring_ on which these
keys must be strung. It is this:--_implicit trust in God_. Trust is the
native air of friendship. In its native air it grows strong and
beautiful. Whatever disturbs an active abiding trust in God must be
driven out of doors, and kept out. Doubt chills the air below normal.
Anxiety overheats the air. A calm looking up into God's face with an
unquestioning faith in _Him_ under every sort of circumstance--this is
trust. Faith has three elements: knowledge, belief and _trust_.
Knowledge is acquaintance with certain facts. Belief is accepting these
facts as true. _Trust is risking_ something that is very precious. Trust
is the life-blood of faith. This is the atmosphere of the true natural
life as planned by God.

"If a wren can cling
To a spray a-swing
In a mad May wind, and sing, and sing,
As if she'd burst for joy;
Why cannot I,
Contented lie,
In His quiet arms, beneath His sky,
Unmoved by earth's annoy?"

Shall we take these keys, and this key-ring and use them faithfully? It
will mean intimate friendship with God. And that is the one secret of
power, fresh, and ever freshening.

There is a simple story told of an old German friend of God which
illustrates all of this with a charming picturesqueness.