As Dependent As Others On Divine Grace

The agent, of herself, was but as other believers. She felt the need of seeking God for her own personal needs, as every believer feels it in his sense of weakness. At one General Conference Mrs. White spoke out:SPIAM 31.2

“I never realized more than I do today the exalted character of the work.... I see the need in myself.... I must have a new fitting up, a holy unction, or I cannot go any further to instruct others. I must know that I am walking with God.... I must know that the grace of God is in my own heart, that my own life is in accordance with His will.”—Testimonies for the Church 2:618. Spoken before the General Conference of 1871.SPIAM 31.3

The possession of the prophetic gift does not make the human agent a strange and different kind of person. In personal life, my childhood memory very clearly pictures a kindly, motherly neighbor, for whom I used to do errands. She was a good mother in Israel, and our old headquarters in Michigan had numbers of such good mothers in the church and community. Mrs. White loved the home duties, and might be heard singing to herself as she worked about the house. Naturally the constant demands upon her time in the work of the cause left her less time for the common duties that other homekeepers generally have.SPIAM 31.4

There was nothing of the pretentious about her bearing, no attitude of officiousness. There was no assumption of personal authority, or suggestion of personal wisdom about everything. But when the Spirit of the Lord impressed her to give counsel, there was an inflexible courage to speak the message needed, in the fear of God and in the spirit of Christ. Leading brethren might come for counsel regarding this problem or that. She might say that no light had been given her concerning it; the brethren would have to seek God, and do their best. Again, it might be, she had just the light needed. She had been shown the very situation presented, and had counsel from the Lord as to what should be done. Often this counsel would be found written out in those journals in which she would write, write, morning by morning and day by day, as the Spirit recalled to her mind things shown, perhaps in the night season.SPIAM 32.1