Nehemiah’s Cure for Physical Languor

“Neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” — Nea. viii. 10.

HERE is something very suggestive about

this passage. Nehemiah is addressing the people. His aim, above all things, is to inspire them to work. A new nation is forming; and a new nation, beyond everything else, requires energy. Nehemiah’s advice, therefore, is directed toward energy. What is that advice? What is his recipe for becoming strong? Does he say, “Take plenty of exercise,” “Take plenty of food,” “Take plenty of fresh air”? None of these is the distinctive precept on which he lays stress. His anxiety points in another direction. He looks round on the multitude and sees a mass of downcast faces. He is afraid of the downcastness; he thinks this will sap their strength more than will any physical want. Accordingly, it is their depression that he blames. He says, in effect: You are undermining your physical strength by your pessimism. A strong body is not built by a sad heart. The powerful frame is created by pleasant feelings. If you desire weight to your hand, keep your heart light. If you would avoid weary feet, keep your spirit on the wing. If you would be capable of the burden, keep your soul buoyant. Your force lies in your felicity; your strength is your joy.” But observe, Nehemiah qualifies the statement. He does not say that every joy will make a man strong; his words are, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” And he is quite right in this limitation. The joy which strengthens must be unselfish joy. I do not think that joy about personal good-fortune is a whit more invigorating to the body than grief for personal loss. They are both weakening. Pope Clement the Seventh died of sorrow for a defeat; but his successor, Leo the Tenth, died of exultation for a victory. Personal excitement, whether through laughter or through tears, paralyses the work of the hour. If in the midst of writing an article you heard that you had come into a great fortune, I do not think you would write a line more that day. But if you heard the same news of one whom you loved, and whose poverty had given you pain, you would be fanned by an inspiration which would make the pen fly. What marks the difference? It is this — the one is the joy of the flesh; the other is the joy of the Lord.

Lord, set Thy joy before me, Thine impersonal joy, the joy of seeking and saving that which was lost! Nothing else will make me strong enough to endure the cross and despise the shame. I hear Thy voice saying, “Go, work to-day in My vineyard.” But my heart is heavy, O Lord, my heart is heavy. I have been losing in the mart of commerce, and the sting of the loss is photographed everywhere. It lends rapidity to the rain, stoniness to the street, weariness to the way. It makes the stairs steeper to climb, the dwellings drearier to visit, the rust and moth more rampant, the panes of the windows more opaque, the dust on the floors more deep, the path of the poor more repelling. What am I to do, O Lord! It is in vain they tell me to do Thy will. I can do Thy will; but as long as it is outside of mine I am a weak workman. I want Thy will to be mine, O Lord; I shall be weary in Thy work till I love what Thou lovest. Give me Thy joy in helping the jaded! Give me Thy rapture in saving the ruined! Give me

Thy thrill in appeasing the desert thirst! Shorten lane and alley through my love of the poor! Lessen dust and mire through my devotion to the toiler! Abridge the height of stairs through the fleetness of human sympathy! Conceal repulsive sights through the rainbow in my soul! Hide the gloom of the present through the gladness of the promise! Drown fatigue by fervour; kill enervation by earnestness; disperse weakness by the winds of the Spirit; slay torpor by inward transport; obscure the mean cradle by the coming Christ! My strength will come when I enter into Thy joy.