Perhaps you have already encountered it along the way and need to be reminded of it afresh.
As you start the New Year and seek to know what the will of the Lord might be for you, let this be a small part of the answer to that quest:
OTHERS MAY....YOU CANNOT
Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, might manipulate (use false guilt and shame), pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.
Others may boast of themselves, of “their work”, of “their successes”, of “their writings”, of “their ministry and office”, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.
Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that he may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord may let others to “be seen of men”, to be “honored” and “put forward”, but keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.
He may let others be great, but keep you small.
He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but he will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work more precious, he may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your future reward ten times greater.
The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over.
So make up your mind that God in His infinite sovereignty, has a right to do as He pleases with His own.
He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely will yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.
Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and not men and their traditions, and that He must have the right to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others.
Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.
By G. D. Watson
(1845–1924)
