Loving the Unseen Friend

“The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It shall yet touch his garment’s fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist Transmute its very dust to gold.”

Love for Christ is transforming the world. Love always transforms. Many a life is made beautiful by a pure, sweet, strong human love. Who has not seen a young wife, with light, girlish nature, without seriousness, caring only for herself as it seemed, almost trivial, her friends thought, until a baby came, when all was changed? She became serious, thoughtful, earnest. Self died, and her soul flowed out in unsparing service. She lived now for her child. The hands that heretofore had been idle became ministering hands. Too dainty before for any toil or any rough touch, they were now used without thought in caring for her child. Her whole being was transformed and shone now in noble beauty. Love had wrought the change. Little children are God’s angels to thousands of young mothers, sent to bless them by drawing their heart away from self. For we never learn to live until we cease to think of ourselves and begin to live for some object outside of self. Selfishness destroys the life, blights its beauty, withers up its powers, lays a curse upon it. Love saves the life, develops its faculties, calls out its best.

There was a childless home. Husband and wife grew up together in mutual love, but, having no interest outside of their own lives, they became selfish, grasping, covetous. Years passed, and they were growing rich, but were miserly, saving every possible cent. They pinched themselves, living almost like beggars, with thin clothing, poor fare, in fireless rooms. They gave nothing away to the relief of the need and distress about them. Appeals for God’s work met with no response. Thus time passed till they had reached mid-life. Then the breaking up of another home by the death of the parents, brought a little child into this cold, loveless, dreary home. At once the child found her way into both these withering hearts, and little by little the love awoke. Almost instantly there was a change. The home was brightened. The hoarded money was brought out and was spent more freely. The poor were remembered. God’s cause received help. The faces that were growing old and cold with the lines of greed and grasping desire became soft and warm with love’s subtle warmth. The two lives were transformed. God had saved them through a little child.

These are only familiar illustrations of what even human love does continually in this world. We do not know what God is doing for us when he gives us friends to love, especially when he gives us those the loving of whom costs us something. The blessing comes through the serving, through the giving out of life. An invalid or a suffering one in a home is ofttimes the means of softening, refining, and enriching all the household lives. When God sends you one to love who becomes a burden upon your heart, who calls for sacrifice, service, patient care and thought and cost, lift up your eyes and reverently thank him, for there is a divine blessing for yourself in this ministering in Christ’s name. Such loving helps in saving our souls. This is a losing of life which is in reality the finding of it.

But it is the loving of Christ which works the most wonderful transformations. It has changed millions of lives from sin, sordidness, cruelty, degradation, and crime, into beauty, gentleness, refinement, saintliness. It is nearly two thousand years since Christ died upon the cross, rested in the grave, and arose from the dead. All these centuries multitudes in each generation have believed in him and loved him; and love for him has changed their lives, lifted them up and drawn them after him in holy devotion. His followers have learned the lessons of patience, unselfishness, endurance of wrong, forgiveness of injuries, compassion for the weak, pity for the lost, and kindly ministry to the needy and the sorrowing. The whole blessed work of Christianity is simply the influence of the love of the unseen Christ in human hearts and lives.

“But how can we love one whom we have not seen and cannot see?” is a question which many ask. For one thing we may learn all the story of Christ as told in the Gospels, until we are familiar with it. Then we may remember that while Christ is unseen on the earth, he is as really present as he was during the years of his abode in Palestine. He promised, “I am with you all the days,” and he certainly meant just what he said. His presence does not depend on our seeing him.

Indeed, we never really see any of our friends. It is not the human form you can see that is the person you love. It is not your mother’s face and hair and hand and body that you love; it is her soul, her spirit. It is not her body that is gentle, patient, kind, thoughtful, unselfish. A body cannot love. Even the most lovely face cannot itself be a benediction to you. It is the life that dwells in the body that is your mother. You can say of her, in a sense that is true, “Whom having not seen I love.” Take any friend who is much to you, on whom you lean, and it is not the body that you love. There is sweetness in a face, kindly warmth in an eye, thrilling inspiration in a touch. Why? Because of the soul that is in the body. But the body is not your friend, whom you have really never seen, since you cannot see truth, purity, love, sympathy, constancy, strength.

We cannot see Christ, but if we have become his, he is indeed our personal friend and is really to us all that such a divine Friend can be. What is it in your best human friend that is most to you, on which you lean most in weakness, which comforts you most in sorrow, which is the best help to you in any need or trouble? Is it anything in your friend which you can see? Is it not his truth, his wisdom, his love for you, his sympathy, his faithfulness, his constancy? Even if he is not with you at all so that you can see him, is he not still a strength to you, a comfort, a refuge, a help? The consciousness that he is your friend; that whatever else may fail you he will not; that he sympathizes with you, understands you, will be patient with you; the assurance that if need be he will help you with all the capacity for helpfulness there is in him, — makes you strong, blesses you, gives you peace, though you see him not.

You cannot see Christ, but you believe that he is true, loving, faithful, touched with sympathy when you suffer; that he knows all about you and loves you with a love personal, deep, tender, strong, everlasting. You know, too, that he has all power and that all his power is yours to support, keep, bless, deliver, protect, save you. You know that he has all wisdom — wisdom that never errs, that never counsels rashly, indiscreetly, short-sightedly, and that all this wisdom is for the guidance of your life, the ordering of your steps. As we think along these lines the unseen Christ becomes very real to us.

Loving this Friend whom we cannot see becomes then a blessed power in our life. For one thing we learn to trust him and leave in his hands all the affairs of our life. “In whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye greatly rejoice.”

“I cannot know why suddenly the storm Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath; But this I know — God watches all my path, And I can trust.

I may not draw aside the mystic veil That hides the unknown future from my sight, Nor know if for me waits the dark or light; But I can trust.

I have no power to look across the tide, To see while here the land beyond the river; But this I know — I shall be God’s for ever; So I can trust.”

Many people have altogether too narrow a conception of what Christ does for them. They think of him as forgiving their sins, changing their hearts, helping them in their purely spiritual affairs, and bringing them home at last to heaven. But there is nothing in our life which is not of interest to him, and true believing in Christ implies the putting into his hands of all our affairs. This may not always be easy. We like to have our own way, to carry out our own plans. We do not like to have sorrow and disappointment break in upon us. Yet if he is to fashion our life into heavenly beauty, he must have his way with us. Thus we get a glimpse of the meaning of trial. If sorrow comes in place of the joy you had planned for yourself, it is because sorrow is better than joy would have been. Christ may ofttimes seem to be spoiling the beauty of our life; but it is ours to trust him even then, and by and by we shall know that his way was wiser than ours. Tapestry weavers see only the wrong side as they weave.

* ‘My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me;
I may but choose the colors —

He worketh steadily.
Full oft he weaveth sorrow;

And I in foolish pride
Forget he sees the upper

And I the under side.”

Loving this unseen Saviour will draw us into his service. No transformation into his character is complete which does not make us like him in the devotion of our life to the good of the world. Perhaps we sometimes overlook this, thinking of Christlikeness as gentleness, patience, meekness, purity, truth, without the active element. But when Christ put the thought of his mission into a sentence it was: “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Not otherwise can we conceive of our mission as followers of Christ. We must follow him in self-denial and sacrifice, in the true laying of our life upon the altar of love. It is this that the world needs to-day — the life of Christ repeated in the lives of his people, in lowly services that shall fill the earth with the fragrance of love, and carry blessing into every nook and corner of it.

Not long shall he be to us an unseen Saviour. We shall soon go to be with him.

“A little while, with tides of dark and night, The moon shall fill; Glad summer’s glow be changed to shrouding white And winter’s chill.

A little while shall tender, winsome flowers

In beauty blow; And ceaselessly, through shade and sunny hours.

Death’s harvest grow.

A little while shall tranquil planets speed

Round central flame; New empires spring and pass, new names succeed

And lapse from fame.

A little while shall cold star tapers burn

Through time’s brief night; Then shall my soul’s beloved One return

With dayspring bright.

How oft in golden dreams I see him stand,

I list his voice, As, winning largess from his lifted hand

The poor rejoice.

But waking bears that vision dear away,

My better part, And leaves in me this pale and empty day,

This longing heart.

I cannot see thee, but I love thee! Oh,

Thine eyes, that read The deepest secrets of the spirit, know

‘Tis love indeed.

A little while; but, ah! how long it seems!

My Jesus, come, Surpass the rapture of my sweetest dreams,

And take me home.”