A Love-Message to the Sorrowing
This world is full of unhappy people; and in too many cases this misery is of their own making. Nothing tastes good to a man whose tongue is coated with a fever; the fault is not with the food, but with the disordered body of the invalid; as soon as that gets right, oatmeal becomes a relished luxury. Discontent is a disease of the heart, and is not dependent on external conditions. Paul could sing in a prison, and Ahab was wretched in a palace. Some of the most miserable people I am acquainted with are surrounded with external prosperities; and some of the most sunny-souled friends have not much property except Jesus Christ and a good conscience in possession, and heaven in reversion. A 13 change of condition would be of small avail to thousands of unhappy people; what they need is a change of heart. The inward “Marah” must be sweetened.
But it is not the wilfully unhappy that I have in mind when bringing this love-message, but those whose sorrows are not of their own causing — sorrows that come upon them by the permissive providence of God. If such a word as “chasten” and “afflict” and “correct” mean anything in the Bible, they certainly mean that our heavenly Father does sometimes send troubles upon His own beloved children. “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten” — “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth”; these are just as plain statements as words can make them. The Psalmist faced this tremendous truth when he said, “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because Thoit didst it.” How that fact alters the case! It is a blessed discovery we make when we discover God’s hand in any experience of joy, or any experience of sorrow. Further questionings will do us no good, for God keeps His own 14 secrets; murmuring and rebellion will only aggravate our sorrows. God did it. Hold that truth right before your eyes, my suffering friend, until you can read it through your tears: and you will learn two things. First, you will learn that there was a divine purpose in your affliction, and there was no haphazard blunder in the stroke. Why God’s dealings with you were wise and kind you may not comprehend any more than your child comprehends the inner works of a clock when it reads the figure “eight” on the clock’s face and starts off for school. The child accepts the fact, and does not go behind it. The mysteries of Providence we are not able to unravel, and if we attempt it the silencing answer comes back, still and know that I am God!”
The other thing for you to learn is that the God who “did it” is not a blind tyrant, but a wise, tender, loving Father. That is a precious discovery; for we can bear almost anything if we are sure that love is behind it. Love never wrongs us. Love never robs us; never tortures us; never lays on 15 us a needless load. The wondrous love that “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,” can be trusted under the heaviest blow or behind the darkest cloud. You may say that you are terribly puzzled about your Father’s dealings with you; but that difficulty arises from the narrow and finite character of our minds. Here we only “know in part” — only a fragment of God’s purposes, and then we go ott” and question the whole. We judge God childishly — finding fault with the woven tapestries of His providence before they are finished in His loom. Remember also that you are on the under side, the dark side of the overhanging cloud of sorrow. While you may be weeping for a departed husband or a beloved child, they may be up on the heavenly side of that cloud, and be gating on its overpowering brightness. Wrestle with that puzzle as hard as you will, you must be content to know only m part, and the rest of it you “will know hereafter.” If you will borrow his spy-glass from the old persecuted hero who wrote the Epistle 16 to the Romans, you will discover this glorious signal in the upper sky — ‘’All things work together for good to them that love God.” See to it that Satan does not sour your heart toward your heavenly Father, or turn the sweet tenderness of trust into the gall of bitter murmurings.
I am often impressed by the different ways in which different persons are affected by sorrows. Some seem to have no rallying power after a great affliction; the wound never heals. On the other hand, trials that consume some persons only kindle others into greater exertions. ‘’TJiis financial gale has carried away all your spars, and swept your decks,” I once wrote to an eminent Christian merchant after his bankruptcy, “but you have got enough grace stowed away in your hold to make you rich to all eternity.” That brave servant of Christ repaired damages, resumed business, rallied his friends, and “at evening time it was light.” Smitten down, he was not destroyed.
The afflictions which are sent of God or permitted by Him are never intended for 17
His children’s destruction, but for their discipHne. The Shepherd casts His flock into deep waters to wash thejii, not to drown them. “You will kill that bush if you put that knife into it so deep,” said a gentleman to his gardener. “No, sir; I do this every year to keep it from running all to leaves; pruning brings the fruit.” Vv’e pastors often find God’s faithful ones bleeding under the knife, but afterward they yield the peaceable and precious fruits of righteousness and triumphant trust. It is that “afterward” that God has in His mind when He sends the trial. Affliction is the costly school in which great graces are often acquired, and from which grand characters are graduated. How is it that a genuine Christian recuperates after being stricken down by a savage adversity or a sharp affliction? Simply because his graces survive the shock. For one thing, his faith is not destroyed. When a ship loses her canvas in a gale, she can still be kept out of the trough of the sea by her rudder; when the rudder goes, she still has her anchor left, but if the 18 cable snaps she is swept helplessly on the rocks. So when your hold on God is gone, all is gone. The most fatal wreck that can overtake you in times of sorrow is the wreck of faith. But if in the darkest hour you can trust God though He slay, and firmly believe that He “chastens you for your profit,” you are anchored to the very throne of love, and will come off conqueror. Hope also is another grace that survives. Some Christians never shine so brightly as in the midnight of sorrow. I know of good people who are like an ivory dice; throw it whichever way you will, it always lands on a square, solid bottom. Their hope always strikes on its feet after the hardest fall. One might have thought that it was all over with Joseph when he was sent to prison, or with John when he was exiled to Patmos, or with John Bunyan when he was locked up in Bedford jail. But they were all put in the place where they could be most useful.
And that reminds me to say that your sorrows may be turned to the benefits of others. You can relieve your own suffering 19 hearts by turning the flood of grief upon some wheel of practical usefulness. An eminent minister who was under a peculiar-^ ly severe trial said to me: “If I could not study and preach and work to the utmost, I should go crazy.” The millstones grinding upon themselves soon wear themselves to powder. But active occupation is both a tonic and a soothing sedative to a troubled spirit. My friend, I entreat you, don’t let your sorrows stagnate; they will turn your soul into a fen of bitter waters, from which will sprout the rank rushes of self-will and rebellion against God. Turn your sorrows outward into currents of sympathy and deeds of kindness to others, and they will become a stream of blessings. A baptism of trial may be your best baptism for Christ’s service. Worlcing is better than weeping; and if you work on till the last morning breaks, you will read in that clear light the meaning of many of your sorrows.
Some time, when all life’s lessons have been learned, And sun and stars for evermore have set, The things which our weak judgments here have spurned, The things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet, Will flash before us, out of life’s dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue; And we shall see how all God’s plans were right, And how what seemed reproof was love most true.
But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart!
God’s plans like lilies pure and white unfold; We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart.
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold; And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, Where we shall clearly see and understand,
I think that we will say, “God knew the best!”