Hating One's Life

Esus said, “He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” In what sense are we to hate our life? We are not to despise our life, regard it as of no account. Sometimes we hear discouraged and despairing men say, “My life is of no value. I cannot be of any use. I can never do anything worth while. I may as well die.” Jesus did not mean that we are to hate our life in this way. God never made a life that needs to be useless. Jesus said elsewhere that we may not accept even the whole world in exchange for our life. The Bible says that man is but a little lower than God. We understand what Jesus thought of the worth of human lives, when he laid down his own life to redeem them. It is a sin to hate one’s life, to esteem 133 mt 5att ‘Beautiful

it as of no value, to throw it away. We ought to love our life, prize it and keep it, cherish it and guard it.

What, then, does Jesus mean when he says, “He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal “? He means loving life more than duty, more than obedience to God’s commandments. To hate one’s life is to give it up gladly in service of others, even to lose it in saving others. An English medical journal recently reported that Dr. Waddell was attending a poor woman’s child with diphtheria when the operation of tracheotomy was necessary. The instant clearing of the tube became a matter of life and death, and at the risk of his own life, the doctor sucked the tube free of the diphtheritic membrane. The child recovered, but the doctor contracted the disease. He hated his life, that is, he thought it not too valuable to sacrifice in the doing of his duty as a physician. The records of every day are full of incidents in which, in hospitals, in homes, on railway trains, in mines, and in. [ 134 ] lattng €»ne’!S titt

all kinds of service, men and women are illustrating this lesson. The highest example the world ever saw was in Christ’s own case, when the Son of God hated his own life in order to save the world.

It is easy enough to think of this law of life in a large way, as a theory. Now and then there comes an opportunity also to illustrate it in a grand way, as some nurse does, as some doctor does, as a mother does, as an engineer on a railway train does. But how are we going to live this life in the common experiences of every day.? We ought to try to interpret this law of the cross so as to make it appHcable in the home, the neighborhood, the school, the business office. Victor Hugo attempts it in speaking of the philosophy of life. He says:” Men hate, are brutes, fight, lie, leave their dream of beautiful life unto the shadows. But share you your bread with little children; see that no one goes about you with naked feet; look kindly upon mothers nursing their children on the doorsteps of humble cottages; do not knowingly crush the hum- [135]

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blest flower; respect the needs of birds. Be like him who has a watering pot in his hand, only let your watering pot be filled with good deeds and good words.”

The keynote of the lesson is self-denial, which is not merely doing without meat in Lent, giving up some customary indulgence for a few weeks, sacrificing a few things you do not care much for to get a little money for the missionary collection. There are few farces enacted in the world equal to the emptiness of pious self-denial, as it is played by a good many people, for example, in the Lenten days, meanwhile living selfishly in all the relations of the common days. Hating your life means, among other things, stooping down and considering the needs of little children, and the loneliness of old people. It means thinking of persons no one else is likely to think of or care for; being patient with disagreeable people, even cranky people, and kind to them; going far out of your way to be obliging to one who perhaps would not go out of his way an inch to do a good turn [’36].

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for you; not noticing slights, inattentions, offensive things, or even slurs; striving to be more Christlike to the person who treats you ungraciously; saying particularly kind things of the person who has been saying unkindly things of you.

One of the magazines recently told the story of the way a young man gave himself. He as poor, and had a great desire to get an education and to become a lawyer. He saved enough money by hard work and close economy to carry him through college in a self-denying way. In his first year he made a friend, a young man, brilliant, and noble as well, who also had all the money he needed. The two were roommates and became close personal friends, in spite of their difference in position. During the first summer vacation, the father of the well-to-do boy died, leaving his son no money, however, to continue his course. The young man wrote to his friend and told him he could not return to college, and that he must abandon his dream of obtaining an education, and go to work. The 137 1

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friend wrote to him about in this way: “You have fine capacity and will make a useful man if you have education. I have found out that I would make only a fourth-rate lawyer at best. It will be far better for you to be educated than for me. I have money enough saved to carry you through college. You must take my money and complete your course. I inclose a draft for the amount. I will drof) out of sight altogether and lose myself. Do not try to find me — it will be of no use. Do not refuse the money — you never can return it to me.” That was self-denial of the noblest kind.

“Impracticable,” some one says. No; it is not impracticable, at least in spirit. You do not begin to know how many chances you will have every day next year of hating your own life in this world, abandoning things pleasant and agreeable, and giving yourself, to help some other one upward. In the home life, the chance comes every hour, the chance of giving up your own way to make another happier, of keeping gentle and sweet instead of becomri38l fating !©ne’j8 life

ing irritated and provoked; of speaking a soft answer instead of a cutting one; of taking the heavy end of some burden, that a frailer one may not be crushed; of giving cheer to one who is discouraged, thus saving him from despair.

There are a hundred opportunities every day of dropping yourself out and putting another in the way of receiving a favor which otherwise would have been yours, of laying selfishness on the cross and nailing it there, and showing love instead. There is an almost infinite field of opportunities for hating your own life, denying yourself, sacrificing your own feelings, impulses, desires, preferences, to make life easier, happier, more joyous and more worth while to others. Helen Hunt Jackson says —

// I can live

To make some pale face brighter, and to give

A second luster to some tear-dimmed eye, Or e’en impart One throb of comfort to an aching heart,

Or cheer some wayworn soid in passing by; [139]

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If I can lend

A strong hand to the fallen, or defend

The right against a single envious strain, My life, though hare Perhaps of much that seemeth dear and fair

To us on earth, will not have been in vain.

There is another sphere of opportunities for living out the doctrine of the cross in every-day life. “Do justice and judgment,” runs the Bible teaching. Do you ever think how grievously some of us fail in being just to others? We are unreasonable, exacting, unfair, partial in our judgment. We criticise others unmercifully. We commend very fewpeople; we condemn almost everybody for something. What unchristly judges of the acts of others we are! Then do you ever think how little of real forgiveness there is among us, even among Christian people? We talk much about forgiveness, and we pray it every time we say the Lord’s Prayer — “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” but how much Christian forgiveness do we practice? No doubt it is hard to forgive one who has [140] fating One’0 Hife

treated us unjustly, unkindly, meanly. Forgiveness is not a natural disposition or act — it is divine — it is Christ working in us. Yet this is part of our lesson. Not to forgive is to love your own life, and that is to lose it. To forgive is to hate your own life, not insisting on having your own way, or demanding your rights; but to bear the wrong, the insult, the injustice, to return good for evil, to turn the other cheek when one cheek is already smarting with the smiting. What a good world we Christians would make of this old earth if we would only get the law of the cross into our lives! What heart-burnings we should cure! What hurts of love we should heal! One of the fine things attributed to Lincoln is, “Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” That is one of the ways of hating one’s own life in this world. It is very easy to plant thistles instead of plucking them up. It is easy to pluck up roses instead of planting them. It is [141]

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easy not to deny ourselves, but just to let the old unregenerate self rule our spirit and go on with our bitter jealousies, envyings, resentments, injustices, believing evil of others, judging others.

We ought to think a little of the outcome. “He that loveth his life loseth it.” If we love self, we shall lose all. If we hate our life, we shall keep it. The life given up and devoted to God and duty, sacrificed in doing good, coming to nothing perhaps before men, shall grow into eternal blessedness, shall rise to nobleness, beauty, splendor of life, in the heavenly glory. A man said recently: “I have worked all my life, but have never got ahead, have never gathered any money. There has always been some human need waiting when I had begun to accumulate a little, and I had to use my savings to give help.” That man has made a great deal of money, but he has little in hand. He has hated his own life and has given all to help others. Yet he has not been losing — he has been keeping his life for eternity. Christ says of those who serve him [ 142 ] gating £)tte’ss Life

and follow him, “Where I am, there shall also my servant be.” Think of being with Christ when you have finished your life of serving, self-denial and sacrifice in following him here. Think of where you will be and what you will be after you are dead.

“Think that the grass upon thy grave is green; Think that thou seest thine own empty chair The empty garments thou wast wont to wear. The empty room where long thy haunt hath been;

“Think that the lane, the meadow and the wood And mountain summit know thy feet no more. Nor the loud thoroughfare, nor sounding shore — All mere blank space where thou thyself hast stood.

“Amid this thought-created silence, say To thy stripped soul: What am I now and

ichere f Then turn, and face the petty, narrowing care Which has been gnawing thee for many a day, And it will die, as dies a wailing breeze, Lost in the solemn roar of bounding seas,’* [143]

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“Tis the front toward life that matters most-The tone, the -point of view,
The conMancy that in defeat
Remains untouched and true;

For death in patriot fight may be

Less gallant than a smile,
And high endeavor, to the gods,

Seem in itself worth while!’*