Working Together for Good
The Keen Sight of Love. Romans viii. 28.
t T is not given to all men to look behind the phenomena of daily life, and to see into the methods and purposes of God. This is the prerogative of those who love.
Love is quick to catch the meaning of a hint, a gesture, a whisper. Love has an instinctive apprehension of secrets, too deep for words to convey. Love can afford to wait the unfolding of those deepest thoughts, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived. Love is the befitting atmosphere in which the Spirit of Love can brood, who is also
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the spirit of knowledge and revelation, and who teacheth as none other can. If you would know, you must love.
Do you love? Can you answer without a moment’s doubt the question — “Lovest thou Me?” The materials for the answer cannot be discovered in emotion or ecstacy, which may some day disappear — as light dying off the hills; or a tropical stream suddenly absorbed into the volcanic hollows beneath its bed. Not there, but here, is there a growing sense of God’s personal love to you, and of His parental care? Are you more sensitive to the presence of sin in yourself and others? Do His commandments inspire you with a more quiet and entire obedience? His day — His book — His people — are these more to you than once the scenes of worldly pleasure? If so, you love Him; and that love will grow.
And as it grows in lengthening i 4 8 Morfting XCogetber for (Boob,
years, you will become aware that, after all, it is not yours, but His — the reflection of His love, the beam of His love, which has smitten your heart and been flashed off; as a ray of sunshine will sometimes strike a pane in the window of a distant cottage, and shine there as a point of light, seen from the distance of many miles. It is the outcome of His eternal purpose, which he purposed in Himself in the eternal ages. Oh, marvellous origin of the love of our poor hearts, which has wrought through our calling; and has effected such a result in those who otherwise had been loveless indeed — unloving and unloved!
Love discerns the working of God’s
PLAN WHEN ALL SEEMS MOST STILL.
“We know that things work.” However stationary the stars appear to be in the blue heavens, we know that they are really sailing onward, with great
Silent progress. velocity, in their destined courses. The ocean may seem to sleep at our feet, but in reality it is in a state of incessant activity; its tides and currents perpetually passing to and fro on their appointed ministries. There is not a silent nook within the deepest forest glade, which is not the scene of marvellous activity, though detected only by the educated sense of the naturalist.
So there are times when our lives lack variety and incident. The stream creeps sluggishly through the level plain. Monotony, common-place, dull routine, characterize our daily course. We are disposed to think that we are making no progress; learning no fresh lessons; standing still as the sun over Gibeon; or going back as the shadow on the dial of Ahaz. The child gets impatient, because every day it has to play the same scales.
Then love steps in, and sees that God 15° TKIlorfting Uogetbcr for ©oot><
is busily at work, maturing His designs, and leading the life forward, though insensibly, into regions* of experience, which surpass all thought. The day is breaking; the ice is giving; the picture is advancing; things are moving. God is working all things after the counsel of His own will.
Love discerns the comprehensiveness of God’s plan.
“We know that all things work.” Men are fond of distinguishing between general and particular providences. They are willing to acknowledge the finger of God in some striking event; or in the swift flashing out of God’s sword of justice. They do not hesitate to admit that life as a whole is under God’s direction; but they hesitate to say that He is concerned with its ordinary common-places, valueless as the sparrow’s fall, slight as the hair of the head. Miles if you like; but not steps.
In ©o&’s tpan&< But love refuses to believe this teaching. It looks on it as practical atheism. It feels that God cannot afford to let the thread of its life pass from His hands for a single moment. The fabric of the character cannot for an instant be taken from God’s looms. The moment when God ceased to hold a work would be the moment of irreparable wreckage and harm. Besides, love refuses to believe that its destinies can be absent from the hand and heart of God, though but for the twinkling of an eye; or that a single thing could happen except as He planned, and determined, and permitted. Her quick eye sees Him ever about her path, and her lying down, and acquainted with all her ways.
The spirit thus seems no longer to deal with persons and things; but only with God. It sees no more second causes; because its range of view is filled by the Great First Cause. It finds the will of God, either permitting or enacting, in every event, however trivial, that crosses its path. Everything becomes the vehicle through which God comes near and speaks; everything is intended for some wise and loving purpose; everything is one of the turns of the wheel in the hand of the great Potter, who is fashioning rough clay into a vessel for the royal palace.
Love discerns the harmony of
God’s plan.
“We know that all things work together.” To the eye of sense, things seem contrary the one to the other: the North wind against the South; the frost against the spring’s outburst in bud and blossom; tears against smiles. But love detects the harmony of all things; and sees that they work to* gether like the wheels of some huge machinery, which revolve in different directions, cog in cog, but which are hastening forward an identical result.
When the physician has prescribed some medicine, you go to the chemist to have it made up; and he takes one ingredient from this phial, and another from that, and another from elsewhere: any one of these, taken alone, might kill you outright; but when they have been well compounded and mixed, they work together for a perfect cure.
Do not ask in dark suspicion how this one thing can be for your good. Wait to see the other things with which the great Physician is about to balance it. There are wondrous compensations in His dealings with His children. It is not one thing by itself; but one thing put with another thing, and that with a third, and that with a fourth, and all these together, that work your good.
You cannot see the beauty in those sombre tints; but wait till they are relieved by dashes of colour. You shiver before the wintry blast; but that will work with summer zephyrs to produce the autumn fruit. You refuse to be comforted beneath some afflicting blow; but if you can only hush your impatience till you seethe blessing with which it is to be combined, you will feel that it was well worth your while to have the bitter, if it were needed, as the basis of a wine of life, so sweet to the taste.
Love discerns the benevolence of God’s plan.
“We know that all things work together for good.” Disastrous indeed, and adverse, does God’s Providence sometimes seem. Stroke on stroke. Blow on blow. Tidings on tidings of dismay. And as the loved ones carry Lazarus to the grave, though they dare not speak out what they think, they cannot help feeling it to be a little hard that they should be allowed to suffer thus, by One who had never been known to jfattb anD Xoxpe* 155
tarry, when sickness or death needed His help. Can all this be for good? What good can such things bring?
Then Faith comes to the aid of Love, and reasons of God’s Love and Faithfulness. He gave His Son: can
He withhold any good thing? He is good: can He give aught but good and perfect gifts? He loves: can He permit any hurt to come to those who are dear to Him as the blood of Calvary? Have not all His dealings in the past been only good? Is not the united testimony of the saints of all ages to the invariable beneficence of His dealings, when they have been allowed to work themselves out to their golden conclusion? Does not the Word of God guarantee the “peaceable fruit of righteousness” to those who Submit lovingly to His chastisement?
And thus Love is reassured, and looks away from the discipline to the face of Him that uses the scourge; and as she watches it closely, she sees beneath the frown, which He wears as a visor, the glances of answering love, the falling of pitying tears. It is hard for Him to maintain the disguise. He could not do as He does unless He loved with a love which is wise, and firm, and strong, just because it is so deep. And thereafter love does not hesitate to pronounce of everything, however dark: “Even so, Father: it
seemeth good to Thee, and it is also good to me.”
Even in this life we may live to reap the far-off harvest of good, the product of the sowing of tears. But if not, we may surely reckon on doing so in that world where God will unveil to us His plan; and tell us His reasoils; and explain to us His hidden meaning; and wipe away all tears from our eyes.