To One Who Was Disappointed in Seeking a Change of Position

The Anxieties of the Toiler

I hope that you will have a good year in the office. I have not forgotten your desire to get something else, but it seems as if God wanted you to stay where you are, at least for the present. I believe that when we are doing our duty faithfully as it comes to us, day by day, and are living in free and familiar intercourse with Christ, telling him our wishes and our desires, from day to day, we are always divinely led. It is right for us to ask God to give us a different position, in a more congenial place, where the work is more to our taste, or easier, or more fruitful, or more agreeable, but, if after we have made such request the Master still lets us stay where we are, I suppose we should accept his providential leading as an answer to our prayers. Or, rather, we should believe that he still has work for us in the place where we now are. I have had so many very striking and remarkable illustrations of the divine guidance in cases like yours that I have learned to have an implicit confidence in God’s providence. Of course, the Bible teaches me that his providence is always right, but the experiences which I have had with people, as well as with myself, have given me such practical illustrations of this truth, that what the Bible states as true I have had proved to me over and over again to be indeed true. If you are still kept in the office where you now are during the coming winter, I think you may say that Christ has something for you to do there, something which would suffer if you would go away, something which no other one could do so well as you can.

Then I have no doubt that part of the answer to your prayer comes in the blessing to yourself. We do not always get our best lessons when we have our own way — we learn many of these golden lessons when we are compelled to take another way than our own. The lesson of submission to God, of beautiful confidence in God’s way, is certainly a very precious one. It is wonderful to think that God has a plan for our lives. If we believe this I am sure it is a high honor for us to try to fulfill His plan.

“This thing on which thy heart was set, this thing that cannot be,

This weary, disappointing day, that dawns, my friend, for thee: —

Be comforted; God knoweth best, the God whose name is Love,

Whose tender care is evermore our passing lives above.

He sends thee disappointment? Well, then take it from his hand.

Shall God’s appointment seem less good than what thyself had planned?”

Excuse my rambling on in this preachy way. I hope that you will be very happy and very strong. May God bless you in all your good work.