Christian's Secret of a Happy Life - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

THE LIFE DEFINED

In my last chapter I tried to settle the question as to the scripturalness ofthe experience sometimes called the Higher Christian Life, but which to my ownmind is best described in the words, the "life hid with Christ in God." I shallnow, therefore, consider it as a settled point that the Scriptures do setbefore the believer in the Lord Jesus a life of abiding rest and of continualvictory, which is very far beyond the ordinary line of Christian experience;and that in the Bible we have presented to us a Saviour able to save us fromthe power of our sins, as really as He saves us from their guilt.
     The point to be next considered is, as towhat this hidden life consists in, and how it differs from every other sort ofChristian experience.
     And as to this, it is simply letting the Lordcarry our burdens and manage our affairs for us, instead of trying to do itourselves.
     Most Christians are like a man who was toilingalong the road, bending under a heavy burden, when a wagon overtook him, andthe driver kindly offered to help him on his journey. He joyfully accepted theoffer, but when seated, continued to bend beneath his burden, which he stillkept on his shoulders. "Why do you not lay down your burden?" asked thekind-hearted driver. "Oh!" replied the man, "I feel that it is almost too muchto ask you to carry me, and I could not think of letting you carry my burdentoo." And so Christians, who have given themselves into the care and keeping ofthe Lord Jesus, still continue to bend beneath the weight of their burden, andoften go weary and heavy-laden throughout the whole length of their journey.
     When I speak of burdens, I mean everything thattroubles us, whether spiritual or temporal.
     I mean, first of all, ourselves. The greatestburden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have tomanage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especialweaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments, our inward affairsof every kind, these are the things that perplex and worry us more thananything else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness. In layingoff your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. Youmust hand yourself and all your inward experiences, your temptations, yourtemperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping ofyour God, and leave them there. He made you, and therefore He understands youand knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it. Say to Him,"Here, Lord, I abandon myself to thee. I have tried in every way I could thinkof to manage myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but havealways failed. Now I give it up to thee. Do thou take entire possession of me.Work in me all the good pleasure of thy will. Mould and fashion me into such avessel as seemeth good to thee. I leave myself in thy hands, and I believe thouwilt, according to thy promise, make me into a vessel unto thine honor,`sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every goodwork.'" And here you must rest, trusting yourself thus to Him continually andabsolutely.
     Next, you must lay off every other burden, --your health, your reputation, your Christian work, your houses, your children,your business, your servants; everything, in short, that concerns you, whetherinward or outward.
     Christians always commit the keeping of theirsouls for eternity to the Lord, because they know, without a shadow of a doubt,that they cannot keep these themselves. But the things of this present lifethey take into their own keeping, and try to carry on their own shoulders, withthe perhaps unconfessed feeling that it is a great deal to ask of the Lord tocarry them, and that they cannot think of asking Him to carry their burdenstoo.
     I knew a Christian lady who had a very heavytemporal burden. It took away her sleep and her appetite, and there was dangerof her health breaking down under it. One day, when it seemed especially heavy,she noticed lying on the table near her a little tract called "Hannah's Faith."Attracted by the title, she picked it up and began to read it, little knowing,however, that it was to create a revolution in her whole experience. The storywas of a poor woman who had been carried triumphantly through a life of unusualsorrow. She was giving the history of her life to a kind visitor on oneoccasion, and at the close the visitor said, feelingly, "O Hannah, I do not seehow you could bear so much sorrow!" "I did not bear it," was the quick reply;"the Lord bore it for me." "Yes," said the visitor "that is the right way. Youmust take your troubles to the Lord." "Yes," replied Hannah, "but we must domore than that; we must leave them there. Most people," she continued, "taketheir burdens to Him, but they bring them away with them again, and are just asworried and unhappy as ever. But I take mine, and I leave them with Him, andcome away and forget them. And if the worry comes back, I take it to Him again;I do this over and over, until at last I just forget that I have any worries,and am at perfect rest."
     My friend was very much struck with this plan andresolved to try it. The circumstances of her life she could not alter, but shetook them to the Lord, and handed them over into His management; and then shebelieved that He took it, and she left all the responsibility and the worry andanxiety with Him. As often as the anxieties returned she took them back; andthe result was that, although the circumstances remained unchanged, her soulwas kept in perfect peace in the midst of them. She felt that she had found outa blessed secret, and from that time she tried never again to carry he ownburdens, nor to manage anything for herself.
     And the secret she found so effectual in heroutward affairs, she found to be still more effectual in her inward ones, whichwere in truth even more utterly unmanageable. She abandoned her whole self tothe Lord, with all that she was and all that she had, and, believing that Hetook that which she had committed to Him, she ceased to fret and worry, and herlife became all sunshine in the gladness of belonging to Him. And this was theHigher Christian Life! It was a very simple secret she found out. Only this,that it was possible to obey God's commandment contained in those words, "Becareful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, withthanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God"; and that, in obeyingit, the result would inevitably be, according to the promise, that the "peaceof God which passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds throughChrist Jesus."
     There are many other things to be said about thislife hid with Christ in God, many details as to what the Lord Jesus does forthose who thus abandon themselves to Him. But the gist of the whole matter ishere stated, and the soul that has got hold of this secret has found the keythat will unlock the whole treasure-house of God.
     And now I do trust that I have made you hungerfor this blessed life. Would you not like to get rid of your burdens? Do younot long to hand over the management of your unmanageable self into the handsof One who is able to manage you? Are you not tired and weary, and does not therest I speak of look sweet to you?
     Do you recollect the delicious sense of rest withwhich you have sometimes gone to bed at night, after a day of great exertionand weariness? How delightful was the sensation of relaxing every muscle, andletting your body go in a perfect abandonment of ease and comfort. The strainof the day had ceased for a few hours at least, and the work of the day hadbeen thrown off. You no longer had to hold up an aching head or a weary back.You trusted yourself to the bed in an absolute confidence, and it held you up,without effort, or strain, or even thought on your part. You rested.
     But suppose you had doubted the strength or thestability of your bed, and had dreaded each moment to find it giving awaybeneath you and landing you on the floor; could you have rested then? Would notevery muscle have been strained in a fruitless effort to hold yourself up, andwould not the weariness have been greater than not to have gone to bed atall?
     Let this analogy teach you what it means to restin the Lord. Let your souls lie down upon His sweet will, as your bodies liedown in your beds at night. Relax every strain and lay off every burden. Letyourselves go in perfect abandonment of ease and comfort, sure that when Heholds you up you are perfectly safe.
     Your part is simply to rest. His part is tosustain you, and He cannot fail.
     Or take another analogy, which our Lord Himselfhas abundantly sanctioned, that of the child-life. For "Jesus called a littlechild unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say untoyou, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enterthe kingdom of Heaven."
     Now, what are the characteristics of a littlechild and how does he live? He lives by faith, and his chiefest characteristicis thoughtlessness. His life is one long trust from year's end to year's end.He trusts his parents, he trusts his caretakers, he trusts his teachers, heeven trusts people often who are utterly unworthy of trust, because of theconfidingness of his nature. And his trust is abundantly answered. He providesnothing for himself, and yet everything is provided. He takes no thought forthe morrow, and forms no plans, and yet all his life is planned out for him,and he finds his paths made ready, opening out to him as he comes to them dayby day, and hour by hour. He goes in and out of his father's house with anunspeakable ease and abandonment, enjoying all the good things it contains,without having spent a penny in procuring them. Pestilence may walk through thestreets of his city, but he regards it not. Famine and fire and war may ragearound him, but under his father's tender care he abides in utter unconcern andperfect rest. He lives in the present moment, and receives his life withoutquestion as it comes to him day by day from his father's hands.
     I was visiting once in a wealthy house, wherethere was one only adopted child, upon whom was lavished all the love andtenderness and care that human hearts could bestow or human means procure. Andas I watched that child running in and out day by day, free and light-hearted,with the happy carelessness of childhood, I thought what a picture it was ofour wonderful position as children in the house of our Heavenly Father. And Isaid to myself, "If nothing could so grieve and wound the loving hearts aroundher, as to see this little child beginning to be worried or anxious aboutherself in any way, about whether her food and clothes would be provided forher, or how she was to get her education or her future support, how much moremust the great, loving heart of our God and Father be grieved and wounded atseeing His children taking so much anxious care and thought!" And I understoodwhy it was that our Lord had said to us so emphatically, "Take no thought foryourselves."
     Who is the best cared for in every household? Isit not the little children? And does not the least of all, the helpless baby,receive the largest share? As a late writer has said, the baby "toils not,neither does he spin; and yet he is fed, and clothed, and loved, and rejoicedin," and none so much as he.
     This life of faith, then, about which I amwriting, consists in just this; being a child in the Father's house. And whenthis is said, enough is said to transform every weary, burdened life into oneof blessedness and rest.
     Let the ways of childish confidence and freedomfrom care, which so please you and win your hearts in your own little ones,teach you what should be your ways with God; and leaving yourselves in Hishands, learn to be literally "careful for nothing"; and you shall find it to bea fact that "the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep (as ina garrison) your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Notice the word"nothing" in the above passage, as covering all possible grounds for anxiety,both inward and outward. We are continually tempted to think it is our duty tobe anxious about some things. Perhaps our thought will be, "Oh, yes, it isquite right to give up all anxiety in a general way; and in spiritual mattersof course anxiety is wrong; but there are things about which it would be a sinnot to be anxious; about our children, for instance, or those we love, or aboutour church affairs and the cause of truth, or about our business matters. Itwould show a great want of right feeling not to be anxious about such things asthese." Or else our thoughts take the other tack, and we say to ourselves,"Yes, it is quite right to commit our loved ones and all our outward affairs tothe Lord, but when it comes to our inward lives, our religious experiences, ourtemptations, our besetting sins, our growth in grace, and all such things,these we ought to be anxious about; for if we are not, they will be sure to beneglected."
     To such suggestions, and to all similar ones, theanswer is found in our text, --
In Matt. 6:25-34, our Lord illustrates this being without anxiety, by tellingus to behold the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, as examples ofthe sort of life He would have us live. As the birds rejoice in the care oftheir God and are fed, and as the lilies grow in His sunlight, so must we,without anxiety, and without fear. Let the sparrows speak to us: --