This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important principle: that men are often, and properly, put under obligation to do that for which they have, in themselves, no present ability.
I. To begin at the very lowest point of the subject: it is the nature of human strength and bodily fortitude to have an elastic measure, and to be so let forth or extended as to meet the exigencies that arise. Within certain limits, for man is limited in everything, the body gets the strength it wants in the exercise for which it is wanted. God may fitly call a given man to a course of life that requires much robustness and a high power of physical endurance, on the ground that when he is fully embarked on his calling the robustness will come, or will be developed in it and by means of it, though previously it seemed not to exist.
II. Intellectual force, too, has the same elastic quality, and measures itself in the same way, by the exigencies we are called to meet. Task it, and for that very reason, it grows efficient. Plunge it into darkness, and it makes a sphere of light. It discovers its own force by the exertion of force, measures its capacity by the difficulties it has endured, its appetite for labour by the labour it has endured. All great commanders, statesmen, lawgivers, scholars, preachers, have found the powers unfolded in their calling, and by it, which were necessary for it.
III. The same also is true, quite as remarkably, of what we sometimes call moral power. By this we mean the power of a life and a character, the power of good and great purposes, that power which comes at length to reside in a man distinguished in some course of estimable or great conduct. No other power of man compares with this, and there is no individual who may not be measurably invested with it. Integrity, purity, goodness, success of any kind, in the humblest persons or in the lowest walks of duty, begin to invest them finally with a character, and create a certain sense of momentum in them. Other men expect them to get on because they are getting on, and bring them a repute that sets them forward, give them a salute that means success. This kind of power is neither a natural gift nor, properly, an acquisition; but it comes in upon one and settles on him like a crown of glory, while discharging with fidelity his duties to God and man. And here again, also, it is to be noted that the power in question, this moral power, is often suddenly enlarged by the very occasions that call for it. Not seldom is it a fact that the very difficulty and grandeur of a design, which some heroic soul has undertaken to execute, exalts him at once to such a pre-eminence of moral power that mankind are exalted with him, and inspired with energy and confidence by the contemplation of his magnificent spirit. How often, indeed, is a man able to carry a project simply because he has made it so grand a project. He strikes, inspires, calls to his aid, by virtue of his great idea, his faith, his sublime confidence in truth or justice or duty. All the simplest, most loving, and most genuine Christians of our own time are such as rest their souls, day by day, on the confidence and promise of accruing power, and make themselves responsible not for what they have in some inherent ability, but for what they can have in their times of stress and peril, and in the continual raising of their own personal quantity and power. They throw themselves on works wholly above their ability, and get accruing power in their works for others still greater and higher. And so they grow in courage, confidence, personal volume, efficiency of every kind, and instead of slinking into their graves out of impotent lives, they lie down in the honours of heroes.
H. Bushnell, The New Life,p. 239.
References: Luke 9:18-22. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 164.Luke 9:20-24. Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 102.Luke 9:21. J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide,p. 193; Homilist,vol. vi., p. 104.