The Use of These Earnests
Now for a swifter race!” was the resolve of one over whose path sorrow was beginning to darken heavily. Now for a busier and more useful life!” was the utterance of another, as he rose from his knees, after pouring out the bitterness of his grief into the ear of God.
In these cases tribulation was taking its true course and working its right end. It had gone down to the most sacred depths of the renewed heart, and was calling up buried feelings of devotedness that had remained dormant, but not extinct, under a mass of worldliness. It smote our selfishness, our narrow-mindedness, our sloth.
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our flesh-pleasing, and reminded us. that we had no time to loiter or to sleep. Tearing ofi* the veil which prosperous days had flung over our eyes, it pointed to the vanity of things “seen and temporal,” till the vastness of the unseen and the eternal so grew upon us, that we rose up and went forth, resolving on a swifter race and a busier life on earth.
Still there was a hinderance. The very trial that stirred us up also weighed us down, unknitting our strength, and causing us well nigh to faint. The pressure staid our swiftness, and the deep wound, still bleeding, enfeebled us. We sought to run, but were often held back; and when we would have gone forth to do the work of God, we were constrained to turn aside and go alone, that, in weeping and pleading, we might relieve our heavy hearts. We may at times seem to escape from the sorrow, and, in the Are of zeal, almost forget its bitterness; yet it returns to us in full strength, and we feel as if a chain were on our limbs. There is not indeed the bondage arising from any uncertainty as to the relationship in which we stand towards God. These fetters fell from us when we received God’s record of forgiving love, and knew what it is to be freely pardoned. These fetters no amount of trial can reimpose on us, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.” Nay, it is often in a day of grief that we realize most blessedly how completely grace has set us free. But though there is no re-placement of our chains, and no bitterness of bondage again tasted, still chastisement is not joyous but grievous;” and being grievous” it sometimes disheartens and disables us, so that we cannot do the same amount of service, or undergo the same degree of toil for God, as otherwise we might have done. At the Jirst lighting down of the stroke this is always felt, for we are men in the flesh, and the flesh
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gives way. “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And for a considerable time this continues to be experienced; shorter or longer, according to our natural characters, or according to the specialties of the trial.
Hence it is that affliction is often more a season of preparation for service than a time of actual service, save only as ‘patience is service, for they also serve who only stand and wait.” Let us not fret, then, nor be cast down, because we feel disabled for zealous service for a time. Let it suffice us to know that we are preparing for this. And when the load is lifted off or becomes lighter, then we run with speedier foot, then we labour with fuller strength and freer heart. We cannot expect to be wholly free from sorrow here, for some amount of trial is always needful to keep us from forgetting that this is not our rest, — that this is the night and not the day; but still these intervals of calm and sunshine are precious times, — times of blessing; times of service; times for the swift race and the busy life.
These mornings here, coming after the nights that thicken over us, are most profitable. They not only relieve the o’er-fraught heart,” but are seasons in which we find leisure to learn lessons of wisdom and holiness, which in the time of the sorrow we had overlooked or put from us. The returning elasticity of spirit enables us to rise from our depression, now that the weight has in some measure been lifted off. Too continuous a pressure of grief is apt to make us moody, selfish, desponding, slothful. It narrows the circle alike of vision and of sympathy, and dries up the springs of our nature. But when peace returns after a season of trouble, we seem doubly fitted as well as nerved for duty. The trial has sobered and mellowed us. It has taught us to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. It has
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rubbed off excrescences. It has made us less selfish, less contracted in soul. It has taught us to look round with sympathy upon a suffering world and a weeping church. It was as if we had been taken aside for a season into some quiet nook or dark cave, from which, while alone and undistracted, we could look out unobserved upon the multitudes that passed and repassed. And having been thus brought to form truer, riper judgments, we are led forth again to act — to act more unselfishly, more zealously, yet more stedfastly and soberly.
Our life, after a night of trial has passed over us, should be a life of truer aims, of steadier walk, of higher level, of keener, purer vision. If not, we have suffered in vain.
During the night, much was of necessity hidden from us. But the morning discloses what the night had hidden. It shows us how desperate the struggle was between us and our God, of which at the time we were hardly aware. It shows the amount of patience, love, and faithfulness, that have been expended on us by God. It shows the extent of the evil in us which had drawn down the chastening. It puts us in a position for bringing into practice the knowledge of the world’s vanity and wretchedness which sorrow had taught us. Thus the morning carries out the lessons of the night, and gives us opportunity for exemplifying them. And thus the alternation of trial and rest which makes up our lot on earth, is in truth but a succession of lessons, and of opportunities for practising them. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.” (Psa. xix. 2,)
Thus trial prepares for service. It nerves us, it braces us for toil. It shows us what alone is worth living for, so that when the force of it is in some measure abated, we find ourselves ready to start anew for the
race, ready to wield the weapons of our warfare with a firmer and more skilful hand.
These intervals of brightness, then, are the true seasons for labour. These earnests of the morning should be prized as opportunities specially afforded us by God for strenuous labour. If thus laid out, how blessed will they be found! They are brief, for tribulation is our lot on earth, not ease; but this should only arouse to new vigour; for if they be thus brief, we have no moments to idle away.
But it is here that so many stumble. In trial they call upon the Lord and vow their life to him. Through evil report and good they will follow” him; on the rough way or the smooth they will walk with him; by labour, by sacrifice, by watchfulness, by costly gifts, they will prove their love, and zeal, and constancy! Good words and sincerely spoken! But so were the words of the disciple, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” He spoke what he truly felt, hut when the hour came, the resolution was not to be found. So with us. Trial calls forth many a high thought and prompts to noble purposes. Yet how seldom do these thoughts ripen; how often do these purposes die! Peace returns, sunshine brightens over us, our broken strength knits again, and we sink back into sloth! The calm hour for which we longed, that we might do something for God, has come, but it finds us nearly as heedless and selfish as before we entered into the storm.
This must not be. Why were we smitten, but just that we might be stirred up? And why were we delivered, but just that we might work more strenuously, more eificaciously? How sad, then, that both the trial and the enlargement should fail of their purposed end!
These times of enlargement are times of light and gladness. In these mornings joy has come to us. It is not the mere reaction from sorrow; it is not mere familiarity with suffering; it is not oblivion of the past; it is not the calm of over-spent feeling. It is joy from the Lord. And the joy of the Lord is our strength.” He who gave us the night has given us also the morning. He who called up the storm has brought back the calm. So that it is his joy in which we rejoice; and this joy is our strength. Let not this strength lie idle. The calm will not last; the clouds will soon return; and it concerns us to lay out well the brief hour of light. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work.”