The Blessing of Conflict
“For He established a testimony in Jacob
which He commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children.”
What is the testimony of Jacob? It is his witness to the power of sorrow. His whole life is such a witness. He lies at night on a couch of stone, bemoaning his hard lot; and he has such a dream as never came from bed of down. He wrestles amid the shadows with a great calamity; and, when the day breaks, lo! it is an angel. He gets a bodily imperfection, in the shape of a shrunk sinew. He fears it will lower his influence among a sensuous race. And, behold! it heightens it — heightens it so much that men call him by a new name — Israel, the Prince of God. That is the testimony of Jacob; that is the testimony which the Psalmist bids us spread from sire to son. Tell your children, he says, that the new name, reached by straggle, is the law of all life. Tell them, on the very threshold of the dawn, that the experience of Jacob is to be their experience. Tell them to include in their dream of life the couch of stone, to find a place for the daybreak in the midnight struggle, to see the mercy of God in the impotent limb. Tell them that if they would ascend to heaven, it must be “on stepping-stones of their dead selves,” for the ladder will not bear the weight of a selfish heart, and the gold of the New Jerusalem is only seen by averted eyes.
Son of Man, teach me what it is to be made for Thee. I have begun life with the vision of Jacob’s dream, but without the vision of Jacob’s couch; I have seen the shining, but not the shade. Reveal to me that what I call the shade, Thou callest the shining. Reveal to me that the night in my hemisphere is the day in Thine. Reveal to me that the strait gate and the narrow way must needs be the gate to glory. I used to think my sacrifices were sent to prepare me for heaven by contrast; tell me it is not so. Let me see that the gate to heaven is sacrifice, because heaven itself is sacrifice. Teach me the harmony between the way, the truth, and the life. Show me the symmetry between Thy
Cross and Thy Crown. Let me learn that the divineness of love means the divineness of pain. Let me learn that eternal life is the power of perpetually dying. Let me learn that the flowers of Paradise are the blossoms of early tears — the daybreak vision of what was sewn by night. So shall I hear the testimony of Jacob.