Christ's Withheld Lessons
“Is it true, O Christ in heaven,
That, whichever way we go,
Walls of darkness must surround us,
Things we would but cannot know?”
ALL learning is slow. This is true in proportion to the importance of the lessons. We learn some things quickly, but they are not the things which are of greatest value. Mere head-lessons are gotten more easily than heartlessons. We may memorize the beatitudes in a few minutes, but it takes many years to learn to live them. And in moral lessons this is the only learning that counts. Any one can get a code of ethics by heart, without much effort; but to get the faultless code wrought into conduct, disposition, spirit, character, is the work of a lifetime.
In life-teaching the lessons are given only as fast as they are learned. Our Master will not teach us more rapidly than we can take his lessons. It was in the midst of his most confidential talk with his disciples that he said he had many things to say to them which they could not yet bear. All wise teaching must be from the simplest rudiments up to the more complex knowledge. The mind is not capable of comprehending the higher elements till it has been developed and trained. Then truth itself is progressive, and the pupil is not prepared to receive the advanced lessons until he has mastered the rudiments.
Spiritual truths can be received only as we come to the experiences for which they are adapted. There are many of the divine promises which we can never claim, and whose blessedness we cannot realize, until we come to the points in life for which they were specially given. For example: “In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion.” This word can mean nothing to the child playing amid the flowers, or to the young man or woman walking in sunny paths, without a care or a trial.
It can be understood only by one who is in trouble. Or, take Christ’s word: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” It was given first in place of an answer to a prayer for the removal of a sore trial. It meant divine strength to offset human weakness; and it cannot be re ceived until there is a sense of need. Christ stands beside a happy young Christian and says, “I have a precious word to give you, one that shines with the beauty of divine love; but you cannot bear it yet.” The disciple moves on along life’s sunny path, and by and by comes into the shadows of sorrow or trouble. Again the Master stands beside him and says, “Now I can give you the word I withheld before. It is this: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’” Then the promise glows with light and love.
There is a large part of the Bible which can be received by us only when we come into the places for which the words were given. There are promises for weakness which we can never get while we are strong. There are words for times of danger which we can never know in the days when we need no protection. There are consolations for sickness whose comfort we can never get while we are in robust health. There are promises for times of loneliness, when men walk in solitary ways, which never can come with real meaning to us while loving companions are by our side. There are words for old age which we never can appropriate for ourselves along the years of youth, when the arm is strong, the blood warm, and the heart brave. God cannot show us the stars while the sun shines in the heaven; and he cannot make known to us the precious things of love which he has prepared for our nights while it is yet day about us. Christ says to us then, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” We could not understand them. But by and by when we come into places of need, of sorrow, of weakness, of human failure, of loneliness, of sickness, of old age, then he will tell us these other things, these long-withheld things, and they will be full of joy for our hearts. When night comes, he will show us the stars.
CffRJST’S WITHHELD LESSONS. 221
Older Christians will understand this. There are many things in the Bible which had little meaning for them in life’s earlier days, but which one by one have shone out bright and beautiful along the years, as stars come out in the evening sky when the sun fades from the heavens. Even in childhood the words were said over and over; but they were repeated thoughtlessly because there had been no ex perience to prepare the heart to receive them. Then one day there crept a shadow over the life, and in the shadow the long familiar words began for the first time to have a meaning. Other experiences of care, trial, and loss followed, and the precious words became more and more real. Now, in old age, as the sacred texts are repeated, they are the very rod and staff to the trembling, trusting spirit. No better illustration of this truth can be given than we have in the familiar lines which tell how an old hymn was learned: —
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”
Thoughtlessly the maiden sung;
Fell the words unconsciously
From her girlish, gleeful tongue;
Sang as little children sing;
Sang as sing the birds in June;
Fell the words like light leaves down
On the current of the tune —” Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!”
“Let me hide myself in thee!”
Felt her soul no need to hide — Sweet the song as sweet could be,
And she had no thought beside;
All the words unheedingly
Fell from lips untouched by care,
Dreaming not that they might be
On some other lips a prayer —” Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!”
Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”
Twas a woman sung them now,
Pleadingly and prayerfully.
Every word her heart did know;
Rose the song as storm-tossed bird
Beats with weary wing the air,
Every note with sorrow stirred,
Every syllable a prayer —” Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!”
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”
Lips grown aged sung the hymn,
Trustingly and tenderly,
Voice grown weak and eyes grown dim — “Let me hide myself in thee!”
Trembling though the voice and low,
Ran the sweet strain peacefully,
Like a river in its flow;
Sang as only they can sing
Who life’s thorny path have pressed;
Sang as only they can sing
Who behold the promised rest —” Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee!”
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me!”
Sung above a coffin-lid — Underneath, all restfully,
All life’s joys and sorrows hid;
Nevermore, O storm-tossed soul,
Nevermore from wind and tide,
Nevermore from billows’ roll,
Wilt thou need thyself to hide.
Could the sightless, sunken eyes
Closed beneath the soft gray hair;
Could the mute and stiffened lips
Move again in pleading prayer,
Still, aye still, the words would be,
“Let me hide myself in thee!”
Thus, as life goes on, the meaning of Christ’s words come out clearer and clearer, until the child’s heedless repetition of them becomes the utterance of the faith and trust of the strong man’s very soul.
We cannot bear now the revealing of our own future. Christ knows it all. When a young Christian comes to the Master’s feet and says, “I will follow thee whithersoever thou leadest,” the Master knows what that promise means. But he does not reveal the knowledge to his happy disciple. People sometimes say they wish they could look on into the years and see all that will come to them. But would this be a blessing? Would it make them happier? Could they shape their course better if they knew all that shall befall them, — the struggles, the victories, the defeats, the joys and sorrows, the failures of bright hopes, — just how long they will live?
Surely it is better we should not know our future. So the word of the Master is continually: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Only as we go on, step by step, does he disclose to us his will and plan for our life. Thus the joys of life do not dazzle us, for our hearts have been chastened so that we have learned how to re ceive them. The sorrows do not overwhelm us, because each one brings its own special com fort with it. But if we had known in advance the coming joys and prosperities, the exultation might have made us heedless of duty and of danger. We might have let go God’s hand and have grown self-confident, thus missing the benediction that comes only to simple, trusting faith. If we had known of the struggles and trials before us, we might have become disheartened, thus failing of courage to endure. In either case we could not have borne the revealing, and it was in tenderness that the Master withheld it.
We could not bear the many things Christ has to tell us about heaven, and therefore he does not tell them to us. The blessedness, if disclosed now, would dazzle and blind our eyes; the light must be let in upon us, little by little, so as not to harm us.
Then if heaven were within our sight, as we toil and struggle and suffer here, the bliss would so excite us that we should be unfitted for duty. A traveller tells of returning to France after a long voyage to India, As soon as the sailors saw the shore of their own land they became incapable of attending to their duties on the ship. When they came into port and saw their friends on the quay, the excitement was so intense that another crew had to be found to take their place. Would it not be thus with us if heaven were visible from earth? Its blessedness would win us away from our duties. The sight of its splendors would so charm and entrance us that we should weary of earth’s painful life. If we could see our loved ones on heaven’s shore, we would not be content to stay here to finish our work. Surely it is better that more has not been revealed. The veiled glory does not dazzle us; and yet faith realizes it, and is sustained by the precious hope in its struggles in the night of earthly life, until at last the morning breaks.
This is the great law of divine revealing.
We learn Christ’s teaching as fast as we are able to bear it. So we may wait in patient faith when mysteries confront us, or when shadows lie on our pathway, confident that he who knows all has in gentle love withholden from us for the time the revealing we crave, because we could not yet endure the knowledge. Ever, therefore, our prayer may be: —
“Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene: one step’s enough for me.”