Chapter 18
"ALTHOUGH" AND "YET," A LESSON IN THE INTERIOR LIFE
In many of our store windows at Christmas time there stands a most significant
picture. It is a dreary, desolate winter scene. There is a dark, stormy, wintry
sky, bare trees, and brown grass and dead weeds, with patches of snow over
them. On a leafless tree at one side of the picture is an empty and
snow-covered nest, and on a branch near sits a little bird. All is cold, and
dark, and desolate enough to daunt any bird, and drive it to some fairer clime,
but this bird is sitting there in an attitude of perfect contentment, and has
its little head bravely lifted up towards the sky, while a winter song is
evidently about to burst forth from its tiny throat.
This picture, which always stands on my
shelf, has preached me many a sermon. And the test is always the same, and
finds its expression in the two words that stand at the head of this article,
"Although" and "Yet."
"ALTHOUGH the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither
shall fruit be in the vines: the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field
shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall
be no herd in the stall: YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God
of my salvation."
There come times in many lives, when, like this
bird in the winter, the soul finds itself bereft of every comfort both outward
and inward; when all seems dark, and all seems wrong, even; when everything in
which we have trusted seems to fail us; when the promises are apparently
unfulfilled, and our prayers gain no response; when there seems nothing left to
rest on in earth or Heaven. And it is at such times as these that the brave
little bird with its message is needed. "Although" all is wrong everywhere,
"yet" there is still one thing left to rejoice in, and that is God; the "God of
our salvation," who changes not, but is the same good, loving, tender God
yesterday, today, and forever. We can joy in Him always, whether we have
anything else to rejoice in or not.
By rejoicing in Him, however, I do not mean
rejoicing in ourselves, although I fear most people think this is really what
is meant. It is their feelings or their revelations or their experiences that
constitute the groundwork of their joy, and if none of these are satisfactory,
they see no possibility of joy at all.
But the lesson the Lord is trying to teach us all
the time is the lesson of self-effacement. He commands us to look away from
self and all self's experiences, to crucify self and count it dead, to cease to
be interested in self, and to know nothing and be interested in nothing but
God.
The reason for this is that God has destined us
for a higher life than the self-life. That just as He has destined the
caterpillar to become the butterfly, and therefore has appointed the
caterpillar life to die, in order that the butterfly life may take its place,
so He has appointed our self-life to die in order that the divine life may
become ours instead. The caterpillar effaces itself in its grub form, that it
may evolve or develop into its butterfly form. It dies that it may live. And
just so must we.
Therefore, the one most essential thing in this
stage of our existence must be the death to self and the resurrection to a life
only in God. And it is for this reason that the lesson of joy in the Lord, and
not in self, must be learned. Every advancing soul must come sooner or later to
the place where it can trust God, the bare God, if I may be allowed the
expression, simply and only because of what He is in Himself, and not because
of His promises or His gifts. It must learn to have its joy in Him alone, and
to rejoice in Him when all else in Heaven and earth shall seem to fail.
The only way in which this place can be reached I
believe, is by the soul being compelled to face in its own experience the loss
of all things both inward and outward. I do not mean necessarily that all one's
friends must die, or all one's money be lost: but I do mean that the soul shall
find itself, from either inward or outward causes, desolate, and bereft, and
empty of all consolation. It must come to the end of everything that is not
God; and must have nothing else left to rest on within or without. It must
experience just what the prophet meant when he wrote that "Although."
It must wade through the slough, and fall off of
the precipice, and be swamped by the ocean, and at last find in the midst of
them, and at the bottom of them, and behind them, the present, living, loving,
omnipotent God! And then, and not until then, will it understand the prophet's
exulting shout of triumph, and be able to join it: "YET I will rejoice in the
Lord; I will joy in the God of my salvation."
And then, also, and not until then, will it know
the full meaning of the verse that follows: "The Lord God is my strength, and
He will make my feet like hind's feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine
high places."
The soul often walks on what seem high places,
which are, however, largely self-evolved and emotional, and have but little of
God in them; and in moments of loss and failure and darkness, these high places
become precipices of failure. But the high places to which the Lord brings the
soul that rejoices only in Him, can be touched by no darkness or loss, for
their very foundations are laid in the midst of an utter loss and death of all
that is not God.
If we want an unwavering experience, therefore,
we can find it only in the Lord, apart from all else; apart from His gifts,
apart from His blessings, apart from all that can change or be affected by the
changing conditions of our earthly life.
The prayer which is answered today, may seem to
be unanswered tomorrow; the promises once so gloriously fulfilled, may cease to
be a reality to us; the spiritual blessing which was at one time such a joy,
may be utterly lost; and nothing of all we once trusted to and rested on may be
left us, but the hungry and longing memory of it all. But when all else is
gone, God is still left. Nothing changes Him. He is the same yesterday, today,
and forever, and in Him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. And the
soul that finds its joy in Him alone, can suffer no wavering.
It is grand to trust in the promises, but it is
grander still to trust in the Promiser. The promises may be misunderstood or
misapplied, and at the moment when we are leaning all our weight upon them,
they may seem utterly to fail us. But no one ever trusted in the Promiser and
was confounded.
The God who is behind His promises and is
infinitely greater than His promises, can never fail us in any emergency, and
the soul that is stayed on Him cannot know anything but perfect peace.
The little child does not always understand its
mother's promises, but it knows its mother, and its childlike trust is founded
not on her word, but upon herself. And just so it is with those of us who have
learned the lesson of this "Although" and "Yet." There may not be a prayer
answered or a promise fulfilled to our own consciousness, but what of that?
Behind the prayers and behind the promises, there is God, and He is enough. And
to such a soul the simple words, GOD IS, answer every question and solve every
doubt.
To the little trusting child the simple fact of
the mother's existence is the answer to all its need. The mother may not make
one single promise, or detail any plan, but she is, and that is enough for the
child. The child rejoices in the mother; not in her promises, but in herself.
And to the child, as to us, there is behind all that changes and can change,
the one unchangeable joy of the mother's existence. While the mother lives, the
child must be cared for, and the child knows this, instinctively if not
intelligently, and rejoices in knowing it. And while God lives, His children
must be cared for as well, and His children ought to know this, and rejoice in
it as instinctively and far more intelligently than the child of human parents.
For what else can God do, being what He is? Neglect, indifference,
forgetfulness, ignorance, are all impossible to Him. He knows everything, He
cares about everything, He can manage everything; and He loves us; and what
more could we ask? Therefore, come what may, we will lift our faces to our God,
like our brave little bird teacher, and, in the midst of our darkest
"Althoughs," will sing our glad and triumphant "Yet."
All of God's saints in all ages have done this.
Job said, out of the depths of sorrow and trial which few can equal, "Though He
slay me yet will I trust in Him."
David could say in the moment of his keenest
anguish, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," yet "I
will fear no evil; for Thou art with me." And again he could say, "God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, will not we
fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the
midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled; though the
mountains shake with the swelling thereof . . . God is in the midst of her; she
shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early."
Paul could say in the midst of his sorrows, "We
are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in
despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed . . . for
which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man
is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look,
not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the
things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are
eternal."
All this and more can the soul say that learned
this lesson of rejoicing in God alone.
Spiritual joy is not a thing, not a lump of joy,
so to speak, stored away in one's heart to be looked at and rejoiced over. Joy
is only the gladness that comes from the possession of something good, or the
knowledge of something pleasant. And the Christian's joy is simply his gladness
in knowing Christ, and in his possession of such a God and Saviour. We do not
on an earthly plane rejoice in our joy, but in the thing that causes our joy.
And on the heavenly plane it is the same. We are to "rejoice in the Lord, and
joy in the God of our salvation"; and this joy no man nor devil can take from
us, and no earthly sorrows can touch.
A writer on the interior life says, in effect,
that our spiritual pathway is divided into three regions, very different from
one another, and yet each one a necessary stage in the onward progress. First,
there is the region of beginnings, which is a time full of sensible joys and
delights, of fervent aspirations, of emotional experiences, and of many secret
manifestations of God. Then comes a vast extent of wilderness, full of
temptation, and trial, and conflict, of the loss of sensible manifestations, of
dryness, and of inward and outward darkness and distress. And then, finally, if
this desert period is faithfully traversed, there comes on the further side of
it a region of mountain heights of uninterrupted union and communion with God,
of superhuman detachment from everything earthly, of infinite contentment with
the Divine will, and of marvellous transformation into the image of Christ.
Whether this order is true or not, I cannot here
discuss, but of one thing I am very sure, that to many souls who have tasted
the joy of the "region of beginnings" here set forth, there has come afterwards
a period of desert experience at which they have been sorely amazed and
perplexed. And I cannot but think such might, perhaps, in this explanation,
find the answer to their trouble. They are being taught the lesson of
detachment from all that is not God, in order that their souls may at last be
brought into that interior union and oneness with Him which is set forth in the
picture given of the third and last region of mountain heights of
blessedness.
The soul's pathway is always through death to
life. The caterpillar cannot in the nature of things become the butterfly in
any other way than by dying to the one life in order to live in the other. And
neither can we. Therefore, it may well be that this region of death and
desolation must needs be passed through, if we would reach the calm mountain
heights beyond. And if we know this, we can walk triumphantly through the
darkest experience, sure that all is well, since God is God.
In the lives of many who read this paper there
is, I feel sure, at least one of these desert "Althoughs," and in some lives
there are many.
Dear friends, is the "Yet" there also? Have you
learned the prophet's lesson? Is God enough for you? Can you sing and mean
it,
If not, you need the little bird to speak to
you.
And the song that he sings, as he sits on that
bare and leafless tree, with the winter storm howling around him, must become
your song also.
"Though the rain may fall and the wind be blowing,
And cold and chill is the wintry blast;
Though the cloudier sky is still cloudier growing,
And the dead leaves tell that summer is passed;
Yet my face I hold to the stormy heaven,
My heart is as calm as a summer sea;
Glad to receive what my God hath given,
"When I feel the cold, I can say, `He sends it,'
And His wind blows blessing I surely know;
For I've never a want but that He attends it;
And my heart beats warm, though the winds may blow
The soft sweet summer was warm and glowing,
Bright were the blossoms on every bough;
I trusted Him when the roses were blowing,
"Small were my faith should it weakly falter,
Now that the roses have ceased to blow;
Frail were the trust that now should alter,
Doubting His love when the storm-clouds grow.
If I trust Him once I must trust Him ever,
And His way is best, though I stand or fall,
Through wind or storm He will leave me never,
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