The Struggle Succeeding Light
“But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.” — Heb. x. 32.
“After ye were illuminated.” Surely that was a strange time for the birth of conflict. I thought that the coming of light was the signal for the end of war. I thought that when the heart was lighted up by the Spirit of Christ, there must of necessity be a termination to all darkness. Yes, but for that very reason there must be a temporary experience of pain — a pain which was foreign to the unregenerate heart. It is a glorious thing to be illuminated, but its first glory lies in this, that it shows me my past misery. When the Divine lamp is lighted in the room of my human nature, it lets me see how poorly that room is furnished. For the first time in my life I am pained with myself, I fight with myself. Before that time I was perfectly satisfied; it was the satisfaction of ignorance. I did not see my poverty; there was no light in the room. But now that the light has come, it has taken away my false rest; it has set me at war with myself; it has made me dissatisfied with my surrouncliugs; it has caused me to cry, “0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?”
0 Thou Spirit of light, I wait for Thee. I wait for Thee, knowing that when Thou comest Thou shalt come with a gift in Thy hand which the world would rather want — the gift of pain. I know that when Thy light shall rise within me the joy of the new vision shall be chequered by the sight of the old corruption. I know that when Thy power shall dawn within me there shall be stirred within my heart the fires of a conflict to which it now is stranger, for Thy new law in my mind shall reveal the old law in my members. But I would rather have Thy presence with the pain than Thine absence without it. Come into my heart with Thy Divine fire, that all its base alloy may be purified. Pour into my spirit Thy burning love, that I may awake more and more to the sense of mine own lovelessness. Breathe into my conscience Thy quickening power, that I may feel more and more the depth of mine own depravity. Inspire into my soul the vision of Thy Divine beauty, that I may learn more and more how poor, how mean, how worthless is this natural life of mine. I will begin the great struggle when Thy light has come; I will fight the fight of faith when Thy glory is risen upon me.