The Ability of Faith
u Nay, never falter; no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain but the steadfast mind. The undivided will to seek the good; ‘Tis that compels the elements and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. Say we fall! We feed the high tradition of the world, And leave our spirit in our children’s breast.”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
BECAUSE a thing is hard is no reason why we should not do it. The limit of duty is not the limit of human ability. We ought to do many things which, with our own strength alone, we cannot do. There is a realm of faith in which a Christian should live which is not under the sway of natural laws. The religion of Christ counts for little with us if it does not enable us to do more than others who know not its secret. Our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Our achievements and attainments must be of a higher order than those of this world’s people. The true spirit of Christian faith is one of quiet confidence in the presence of any duty, any requirement. It knows no impossibilities. It staggers at no command. It shrinks from no responsibility. It is crushed under no burden.
“So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’
The youth replies, I can! ‘”
Two brothers came to the Master with a request that they might have the first place in his kingdom. They were thinking of earthly rank. The Master answered by asking them if they were able to accept his cup and baptism. They did not know what he meant, but they believed so utterly in him that they calmly answered, “We are able.”
This was a committal from which there could be no withdrawal. It implied courage. They knew not to what future they were going; what it would cost them to be true to their pledge; but they faltered not. It implied love for their Master. This was the secret of it all. They could not be separated from him. They Arould follow him anywhere, they loved him so. It implied faith. They did not know what the cup would be which they had solemnly promised to drink; but they believed in Christ, and in his love and wisdom, and were sure he would lead them only to what would be the truest and the best for them.
This is the lesson every follower of Christ should learn. To every call of the Master, to every allotment of duty, to every assignment of service, to every laying of the cross at our feet, to every requirement that he makes of us, our answer should be, “We are able.” This is easy enough so long as only pleasant things are asked of us; but pleasant things do not test discipleship. We must be ready to say it when our expectation of honor in following Christ is suddenly dashed away and dishonor appears in its place, and when it means the lifting of the dark cross upon our shoulders and bearing it after him.
Hence the answer of all noble life to every call of duty is, “I am able.” The question of ability is not to be considered. God never asks us to do anything we cannot do through the strength which he is ready also to give. It is thus that God’s men have always answered God’s calls. “Here am I,” was the formula in the Old Testament times. Thus patriarchs and prophets and messengers responded when they heard the divine voice calling their names. There was no hesitation. They did not linger to question, their fitness or their ability. In New Testament days we find the same obedience. St. Paul is a noble illustration. It would seem that the motto of his life was, “I am ready.” That was what he always said, what ever the divine bidding. He was forewarned of chains at Jerusalem, and his friends begged him not to go. But his answer was, “I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Again, he was thinking of Rome, that great metropolis of the heathen world, the centre of the world’s power and splendor, and he wrote, “I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” He is in a dungeon, a prisoner for Christ, knowing that he will soon die as a martyr, and he writes to a friend, “I am ready to be offered.”
An old missionary seal bore the representation of an ox standing between a plough and an altar, with the legend, “Ready for either.” The meaning was that the missionary of Christ must be ready either for toil and service, or for sacrifice on the altar, if that should be the Lord’s will. That was the spirit of St. Paul. He was ready for life, if Christ so willed; for life to the very extreme of self-denying, self-consuming service, if that were the call; for life in chains and in dungeons, if the Mas ter led him to such sufferings. Or, he was ready for death, if by dying he could best glorify his Lord. This is the only true spirit of one who would follow Christ faithfully and fully. Whatever the call of the Master may be, the instant answer of the servant should be, “I am ready. I am able.”
There are many things in Christian duty which, if our little human strength were all we could command, would be impossibilities. Our Lord sent out his disciples to heal the sick and to raise the dead. They could do neither of these things, and they might have said, “We cannot cure fevers, nor open blind eyes, nor make lame men walk, nor restore the breath of life to the dead.” Instead of saying this, how ever, their reply really was, “We are able;” and as they spoke in the name of Christ, power was in their words and in their touch, and miracles were wrought by them. St. Paul has a remarkable word which illustrates the same truth. He is speaking of the endurance of hardships. “I have learned,” he says, “in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content.” Then a little farther on he says, “I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” Here we have the confident “I am able,” with its secret laid bare — “in him that strengtheneth me.”
This is the law of Christ’s kingdom. Nothing is impossible with God. When he us a duty, he will give the strength we need to do it. When he sends one of his servants on an errand, he is ready to give power to perform the task, however hard it may be. When there is a battle to fight, he will inspire the heart and nerve the arm to fight it, so that we may become “more than conquerors through him that loved us.” We are so one with Christ that his strength is ours if he send us, and if we go in faith. We are ever strongest when we are weakest in ourselves, because the n, ure of our conscious weakness is the measure of the strength he imparts to us. This is a blessed secret. It puts the very power of God within our reach. We can do all things in Christ.
There are but two conditions — obedience and faith. The strength will not be given unless we obey. We must not wait to have it given before we will set out — it will not be given at all if we do this. No matter how difficult, how seemingly impossible, the duty may be, we must instantly obey, or no power will be forthcoming. It is when we go forward confidently in the way of duty that the strength is given. There must also be faith. We cannot do these things ourselves; there is not sufficient strength in us. But when we, without doubting, begin to do God’s will, he will put his strength into us. Thus, whatever the task he gives, we may say with quiet confidence, “We are able.” Whatever burden he lays upon us, we need not falter, nor fear to try to bear it. There is no divine promise that the burden will be lifted away, but there is an assurance that we shall be sustained as we walk in faith beneath it.
But this sustaining comes not to him who falters and hesitates; it comes to him only who goes forward firmly in the way that is marked out for him. It comes not to him who waits for the opening of the way before he will set out; the way will open only to the feet of him who goes on unflinchingly and unquestioningly in obedience to the call of duty, regard less of high walls or shut gates or overflowing rivers crossing his path. The floods of the Jordan were not cut off while the pilgrim host lay back in their camps, nor while they were moving down the green banks, nor even while they tarried close to the brink, waiting for a way to be made for them. It was not until the feet of the priests who led the host, moving firmly on, trod the very edge of the water, that the river opened to allow them to pass through to the land of promise. It never would have opened to feet that waited on the bank for it to open. It is so in all cases. There is a time for quiet, patient waiting — when we have done all we can. But there is a time when waiting is defeat and failure.
To none of us, if we are living earnestly, can life be easy. Duties are too large for our ability. Circumstances are hard. Our condition has its uncongenialities. Our tasks are more than our hands can perform. We are disposed to fret and to be discontented, and then to be discouraged, and to say we cannot live sweetly and beautifully where our lot is set. But this is never true. Difficulty never makes impossibility when we have the power of Christ from which to draw. No duties then are ever too large. No burdens are ever too heavy. There is no environment in which we cannot live patiently and sweetly.
It is in the hard lot that we learn our best lessons, and do our best living. Certain birds, when they are to be taught to sing new songs, are shut up in a darkened cage. Then they are caused to hear in the darkness the sweet strains which they are to learn. By and by they begin to sing what they hear, and they are kept singing it over and over until they have fully learned it. Then the curtain is withdrawn, and now they sing the sweet songs in the sunshine. It is thus that God puts us sometimes into darkness where the conditions are hard. “How can we sing the Lord’s songs here?” we ask. But divine help comes to us, and grace, and as we try to live gently, patiently, and lovingly, and to sing the songs of joy, we find we can do it in Christ who strengtheneth us. Then there is always blessing in victoriousness. However great the cost of noble living may be, the reward is always greater than the cost.
“How very hard it is to be
A Christian! Hard for you and me, — Not the mere task of making real
That duty up to its ideal,
Effecting thus, complete and whole,
A purpose of the human soul — For that is always hard to do;
But hard, I mean, for me and you
To realize it more or less,
With even the moderate success
Which commonly repays our strife
To carry out the aims of life.
‘This aim is greater,’ you will say,
‘And so more arduous in every way; ’
But the importance of their fruits
Still proves to man, in all pursuits,
Proportional encouragement.”
Let us never disappoint God by saying in any place that we cannot live there beautifully. Let us rather accept the hardship, the struggle, the burden, the trying environment; and, helped by the divine Spirit, let us learn to do always the things that please God. “When we acquiesce in a trouble,” says Fe“nelon, “it is no longer such.” Submission takes the bitterness out of pain, which becomes calamity when we resist and chafe. “Peace in this life springs from acquiescence even in disagreeable things, not from exemption from bearing them.” Acquiescence is the faith that gets the divine strength which makes all things possible.