"GIRD UP THE LOINS"
Illustration★★★★A loose robe tangles a man’s feet, trips him up if he tries to run, gets caught in the thorns, may be laid hold of by an enemy that wants to drag him back; and every toil, and every travel, and every battle you have got to tuck it up well from the waist. It is a very Eastern metaphor. May I substitute an English vulgarism for it which means precisely the same thing?-Pull yourselves together, that is to say, you will get no radiance of Christian hope in your lives without making a great effort for it.
A sixpence held close to a man’s eye will shut out the sun from him. There is only a certain quantity of energy and power of attention given to us, and if we direct it all in one quarter there will be none of it left for the other. You may take all the water out of the river and turn it in by a sluice into a miller’s lake to grind his corn, and then the bed of the stream is left empty, and that is what a great many of us do.
“Gird up the loins of your mind “; make the effort, for without the effort you will never rise into the great region of this hope (1 Pet. i. 13).—
The point
The Eastern metaphor of girding up one's robe applies to spiritual discipline: we must concentrate our limited energy on spiritual hope rather than scattering it among earthly distractions.