Christian's Secret of a Happy Life - Chapter 18

Chapter 18

"ALTHOUGH" AND "YET," A LESSON IN THE INTERIOR LIFE

In many of our store windows at Christmas time there stands a most significantpicture. It is a dreary, desolate winter scene. There is a dark, stormy, wintrysky, bare trees, and brown grass and dead weeds, with patches of snow overthem. On a leafless tree at one side of the picture is an empty andsnow-covered nest, and on a branch near sits a little bird. All is cold, anddark, and desolate enough to daunt any bird, and drive it to some fairer clime,but this bird is sitting there in an attitude of perfect contentment, and hasits little head bravely lifted up towards the sky, while a winter song isevidently about to burst forth from its tiny throat.

     This picture, which always stands on myshelf, has preached me many a sermon. And the test is always the same, andfinds its expression in the two words that stand at the head of this article,"Although" and "Yet."

     "ALTHOUGH the fig-tree shall not blossom, neithershall fruit be in the vines: the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fieldshall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shallbe no herd in the stall: YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the Godof my salvation."

     There come times in many lives, when, like thisbird in the winter, the soul finds itself bereft of every comfort both outwardand inward; when all seems dark, and all seems wrong, even; when everything inwhich we have trusted seems to fail us; when the promises are apparentlyunfulfilled, and our prayers gain no response; when there seems nothing left torest on in earth or Heaven. And it is at such times as these that the bravelittle bird with its message is needed. "Although" all is wrong everywhere,"yet" there is still one thing left to rejoice in, and that is God; the "God ofour salvation," who changes not, but is the same good, loving, tender Godyesterday, today, and forever. We can joy in Him always, whether we haveanything else to rejoice in or not.

     By rejoicing in Him, however, I do not meanrejoicing in ourselves, although I fear most people think this is really whatis meant. It is their feelings or their revelations or their experiences thatconstitute the groundwork of their joy, and if none of these are satisfactory,they see no possibility of joy at all.

     But the lesson the Lord is trying to teach us allthe time is the lesson of self-effacement. He commands us to look away fromself and all self's experiences, to crucify self and count it dead, to cease tobe interested in self, and to know nothing and be interested in nothing butGod.

     The reason for this is that God has destined usfor a higher life than the self-life. That just as He has destined thecaterpillar to become the butterfly, and therefore has appointed thecaterpillar life to die, in order that the butterfly life may take its place,so He has appointed our self-life to die in order that the divine life maybecome ours instead. The caterpillar effaces itself in its grub form, that itmay evolve or develop into its butterfly form. It dies that it may live. Andjust so must we.

     Therefore, the one most essential thing in thisstage of our existence must be the death to self and the resurrection to a lifeonly in God. And it is for this reason that the lesson of joy in the Lord, andnot in self, must be learned. Every advancing soul must come sooner or later tothe place where it can trust God, the bare God, if I may be allowed theexpression, simply and only because of what He is in Himself, and not becauseof His promises or His gifts. It must learn to have its joy in Him alone, andto rejoice in Him when all else in Heaven and earth shall seem to fail.

     The only way in which this place can be reached Ibelieve, is by the soul being compelled to face in its own experience the lossof all things both inward and outward. I do not mean necessarily that all one'sfriends must die, or all one's money be lost: but I do mean that the soul shallfind itself, from either inward or outward causes, desolate, and bereft, andempty of all consolation. It must come to the end of everything that is notGod; and must have nothing else left to rest on within or without. It mustexperience just what the prophet meant when he wrote that "Although."

     It must wade through the slough, and fall off ofthe precipice, and be swamped by the ocean, and at last find in the midst ofthem, and at the bottom of them, and behind them, the present, living, loving,omnipotent God! And then, and not until then, will it understand the prophet'sexulting shout of triumph, and be able to join it: "YET I will rejoice in theLord; I will joy in the God of my salvation."

     And then, also, and not until then, will it knowthe full meaning of the verse that follows: "The Lord God is my strength, andHe will make my feet like hind's feet, and He will make me to walk upon minehigh places."

     The soul often walks on what seem high places,which are, however, largely self-evolved and emotional, and have but little ofGod in them; and in moments of loss and failure and darkness, these high placesbecome precipices of failure. But the high places to which the Lord brings thesoul that rejoices only in Him, can be touched by no darkness or loss, fortheir very foundations are laid in the midst of an utter loss and death of allthat is not God.

     If we want an unwavering experience, therefore,we can find it only in the Lord, apart from all else; apart from His gifts,apart from His blessings, apart from all that can change or be affected by thechanging conditions of our earthly life.

     The prayer which is answered today, may seem tobe unanswered tomorrow; the promises once so gloriously fulfilled, may cease tobe a reality to us; the spiritual blessing which was at one time such a joy,may be utterly lost; and nothing of all we once trusted to and rested on may beleft us, but the hungry and longing memory of it all. But when all else isgone, God is still left. Nothing changes Him. He is the same yesterday, today,and forever, and in Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And thesoul that finds its joy in Him alone, can suffer no wavering.

     It is grand to trust in the promises, but it isgrander still to trust in the Promiser. The promises may be misunderstood ormisapplied, and at the moment when we are leaning all our weight upon them,they may seem utterly to fail us. But no one ever trusted in the Promiser andwas confounded.

     The God who is behind His promises and isinfinitely greater than His promises, can never fail us in any emergency, andthe soul that is stayed on Him cannot know anything but perfect peace.

     The little child does not always understand itsmother's promises, but it knows its mother, and its childlike trust is foundednot on her word, but upon herself. And just so it is with those of us who havelearned the lesson of this "Although" and "Yet." There may not be a prayeranswered or a promise fulfilled to our own consciousness, but what of that?Behind the prayers and behind the promises, there is God, and He is enough. Andto such a soul the simple words, GOD IS, answer every question and solve everydoubt.

     To the little trusting child the simple fact ofthe mother's existence is the answer to all its need. The mother may not makeone single promise, or detail any plan, but she is, and that is enough for thechild. The child rejoices in the mother; not in her promises, but in herself.And to the child, as to us, there is behind all that changes and can change,the one unchangeable joy of the mother's existence. While the mother lives, thechild must be cared for, and the child knows this, instinctively if notintelligently, and rejoices in knowing it. And while God lives, His childrenmust be cared for as well, and His children ought to know this, and rejoice init as instinctively and far more intelligently than the child of human parents.For what else can God do, being what He is? Neglect, indifference,forgetfulness, ignorance, are all impossible to Him. He knows everything, Hecares about everything, He can manage everything; and He loves us; and whatmore could we ask? Therefore, come what may, we will lift our faces to our God,like our brave little bird teacher, and, in the midst of our darkest"Althoughs," will sing our glad and triumphant "Yet."

     All of God's saints in all ages have done this.Job said, out of the depths of sorrow and trial which few can equal, "Though Heslay me yet will I trust in Him."

     David could say in the moment of his keenestanguish, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," yet "Iwill fear no evil; for Thou art with me." And again he could say, "God is ourrefuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not wefear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into themidst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled; though themountains shake with the swelling thereof . . . God is in the midst of her; sheshall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early."

     Paul could say in the midst of his sorrows, "Weare troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not indespair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed . . . forwhich cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward manis renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look,not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for thethings which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen areeternal."

     All this and more can the soul say that learnedthis lesson of rejoicing in God alone.

     Spiritual joy is not a thing, not a lump of joy,so to speak, stored away in one's heart to be looked at and rejoiced over. Joyis only the gladness that comes from the possession of something good, or theknowledge of something pleasant. And the Christian's joy is simply his gladnessin knowing Christ, and in his possession of such a God and Saviour. We do noton an earthly plane rejoice in our joy, but in the thing that causes our joy.And on the heavenly plane it is the same. We are to "rejoice in the Lord, andjoy in the God of our salvation"; and this joy no man nor devil can take fromus, and no earthly sorrows can touch.

     A writer on the interior life says, in effect,that our spiritual pathway is divided into three regions, very different fromone another, and yet each one a necessary stage in the onward progress. First,there is the region of beginnings, which is a time full of sensible joys anddelights, of fervent aspirations, of emotional experiences, and of many secretmanifestations of God. Then comes a vast extent of wilderness, full oftemptation, and trial, and conflict, of the loss of sensible manifestations, ofdryness, and of inward and outward darkness and distress. And then, finally, ifthis desert period is faithfully traversed, there comes on the further side ofit a region of mountain heights of uninterrupted union and communion with God,of superhuman detachment from everything earthly, of infinite contentment withthe Divine will, and of marvellous transformation into the image of Christ.

     Whether this order is true or not, I cannot herediscuss, but of one thing I am very sure, that to many souls who have tastedthe joy of the "region of beginnings" here set forth, there has come afterwardsa period of desert experience at which they have been sorely amazed andperplexed. And I cannot but think such might, perhaps, in this explanation,find the answer to their trouble. They are being taught the lesson ofdetachment from all that is not God, in order that their souls may at last bebrought into that interior union and oneness with Him which is set forth in thepicture given of the third and last region of mountain heights ofblessedness.

     The soul's pathway is always through death tolife. The caterpillar cannot in the nature of things become the butterfly inany other way than by dying to the one life in order to live in the other. Andneither can we. Therefore, it may well be that this region of death anddesolation must needs be passed through, if we would reach the calm mountainheights beyond. And if we know this, we can walk triumphantly through thedarkest experience, sure that all is well, since God is God.

     In the lives of many who read this paper thereis, I feel sure, at least one of these desert "Althoughs," and in some livesthere are many.

     Dear friends, is the "Yet" there also? Have youlearned the prophet's lesson? Is God enough for you? Can you sing and meanit,

     If not, you need the little bird to speak toyou.

     And the song that he sings, as he sits on thatbare and leafless tree, with the winter storm howling around him, must becomeyour song also.