"_In Him was life_." Out of Him came life. Out of Him comes life. There
was no life, there is none, except what was in this One, and what came,
and comes out from Him all the time. How patient God is! There walks a
man down the street. He leaves God out of his life. He may remember Him
so far as to use His name blasphemously to punctuate and emphasize what
he is saying. Yonder walks a woman in the shadow of the street at night.
And her whole life is spent walking in the dark shadow of the street of
life. And her whole life is a blasphemy against her personality, and
against the God who gave her that precious sacred personality.

Take these two as extreme illustrations. There is life there; life of
the body, of the mind, life of the human spirit. Listen softly, all the
life there is there, is coming out all the time from this One of whom
John is talking. It is not given once as a thing to be taken and stored.
It is _being_ given. It is coming constantly with each breath, from this
wondrous One. This is what John is saying here.

How _patient_ God is! Only we don't know what patience is. We know the
word, the label put on the outside. We don't know the thing, except
sometimes in very smallest part. For patience is love at its best.
Patience is God at His strongest and tenderest and best.

I think likely when we get up yonder, we'll stop one another on the
golden streets. There'll be a hand put out, gripping the other hard. And
we'll look into each other's eyes with our eyes big. And we'll say with
breaking voices, "How _patient_ God was with us down there on the earth,
down there in London and New York."

In Him was life. Out of His hand and heart is coming to us all the time