| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 12 |
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The answer to these questions is that the revealings are made and the blessings bestowed really at the earliest possible moment. The stars are in the sky all day, but we cannot behold them until night comes. My friend could not have seen the precious thought in the psalm six months before. Then she was in health, active, swift in movement, strong, with no consciousness of weakness, rich in human hopes and expectations. And she found very many precious things then in the Bible. It had its lessons, its encouragements, its interpretations. Just what she needed and craved in those active days the book had for her. But the particular revealings which she gets now from its words she did not then find. Now she needs comfort for weakness; strength to endure pain patiently; grace to enable her to readjust her life to its new conditions, assurance of divine love and care in her experience of feebleness. She did not need these special revealings in the time of health and activity, and they were not then available to her.
The experience is a very common one. A happy young girl may sing sweetly the hymn,-
“Jesus lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly;”
And yet it may mean almost nothing to her. She feels no need to fly to the divine bosom. She is conscious of no danger, of no enemy pursuing, of no storm gathering. The words ripple from her tongue in musical measure and tone, but there really is no experience in her heart to interpret them to her. A few years later she is a woman, with many cares, burdens, trials, and sorrows, and again she sings the song:—
“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly;
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide,
Oh, receive my soul at last.”
And now she feels word as it drops from her lips in pleading accents. Every syllable is now a prayer from her heart. On the wings of her song her heart rises,—
“As storm-tossed bird
Beats with weary wing the air.”
What makes the song such a new song to her? New experiences have come into her life, and amid these she has learned her own insufficiency and her need of divine shelter, and has learned also of the preciousness of the refuge in the bosom of Christ.
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