Ups and Downs
“T X 7*E do not begrudge the ten long solid chapters in our Bible that are devoted mainly to the delightful biography of Joseph. They are probably the best-thumbed chapters by boys and girls in the whole Word; they ought to be carefully studied and pondered by every young man who is laying out his plans for life. No person in history, secular or sacred, ever experienced more of the Tips and Downs of life than he did. The contrast between Napoleon an artillery lieutenant, and Napoleon the dictator to Europe — the contrast between Lincoln on a Mississippi flatboat, and Lincoln in the Presidential chair — is not sharper than between the Hebrew youth in the pit and in the prison, and that same Hebrew riding in the second chariot of Pharaoh’s haughty empire.
The prison was really his training-school for the palace. He filled the humbler sphere so full with his integrity and his trustworthiness, that he overflowed into the larger sphere of the Premiership. This is a most important truth for every young man who has any laudable ambition. Many a clerk complains that he does not get a better place or a bigger salary; but he does not stop to think whether he has really earned a promotion. Many a restless minister chafes under the fancied humiliation of hiding his light under the bushel of some obscure parish. Good brother! when your light grows big enough to burn up the bushel, there is no fear but what the people of a larger parish will discover the flame, and will promote it to their taller and more conspicuous candlestick. If the Presbyterians of Edinburgh had not observed a very bright light shining away off in the little hamlet of Arbirlot, they never would have called Dr. Guthrie to the fastidious capital of Scotland.
The only legitimate way to get into a larger place, is to overflow the smaller one. The egregious folly of many of the “strikers” last summer, consisted in this, that if they could not get the bigger loaf they demanded, they would not touch the lesser loaf that was offered them, and very soon they had no loaf at all. There are thousands of just such fools in every department of life, who “strike” for something which they have not fairly earned, and discover at last that they have only struck themselves — dead.
Another capital lesson is taught us by that level-headed and godly young man who behaved equally well in a prison and in a palace. He understood the difference between submitting and surrendering. They are as far apart as the Arctic and the Antarctic. When Joseph was in the penitentiary through a heinous injustice, he submitted to his hard lot gracefully. Instead of gnashing his teeth in impotent desperation, he just went about his daily tasks with a most cheerful temper. He must have been a streak of sunshine within those gloomy walls. He could submit to what was inevitable, but he never surrendered.
My brave Brother A submits to a
small parish and a stingy salary, but he does not give up and growl. In whatsoever place God puts him, he has made up his mind to be content. My young friend Goodgold lost his situation when the bank that employed him failed, and left his little family on low rations. But Goodgold submitted to the humble position of a porter in a warehouse, rather than to loaf about the streets, sulking. He could go down, but he would not ‘• give up the ship.” My excellent sister in Christ, Mrs. Sunnysoul, has lost her health, as well as most of her property. A visit to her sick-room always tones up my faith in the power of God’s grace to give “songs in the night.” She is perfectly submissive to her trying lot; but so far from surrendering her confidence, and her crown, she is absolutely one of the happiest disciples I ever knew. Cast down, she is not destroyed; though sorrowful, she is always rejoicing. She can submit, but she never surrenders.
We very much doubt if it would be safe for us always to be “up” in the world. It is a wholesome process to be “taken down” occasionally. The grass in our door-yards has a tendency to grow rank, and it requires to be taken down by a mower. The yard never looks so well as after the sharp cutter has gone over it. Many a true Christian never appears so attractive in his graces as when God’s mowing-machine has gone over him. His self-confidence, or his growing love of the world, or his sinful ambitions, needed the scythe. Even Paul himself would not have grown up so thick and even, and strong from the roots, if he had not been mowed pretty often. The best trees in the orchard need trimming.
Sometimes we get up into a position that is dangerous to godliness, and then a “taking down” is a blessing. It is just a possible thing that the Lord saw what a dangerous place for Joseph that luxurious house of Potiphar was; so he took him down into a prison. I suspect that God discovered what peril Paul was in of becoming “exalted beyond measure “; so he took him down with some thorn in the flesh that must have pricked the balloon of self-conceit. There is not a spiritual biography in all of Christ’s universal Church, in all ages, but presents a constant alternation of Ups and Downs. When a Christian is carrying too many topsails, God is very apt to send a gale which strips off the canvas. “He that exalteth himself shall be abased “is as true of the Christian as it is of the worldling. But when a chastened soul lies very low before God, how sweet it is to hear him whisper in the ear of faith, “Whoso humbleth himself shall be exalted “!