| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 13 |
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Nor does he give it by so changing our nature that we shall not feel the griefs and pains of life. To do this he would have to rob our hearts of the very qualities in them that are noblest and divinest. Powers to enjoy and to be happy would also be destroyed with the power to suffer; for our joys and pains grow on the same stalk. Rack, stocks, and prison chains hurt the disciples no less because they had the love of Christ in them.
We must get Christ’s joy as he got it. One secret was his unbroken consciousness of his Father’s love. When men hated him, when the world assaulted him, he fled to his Father, and found a refuge into which none could follow him, whose calm peace none could disturb. We, too, must keep ourselves in the love of God if we would find this joy.
Absolute devotion to the divine will was another of the secrets of Christ’s joy. He never did his own will. In this way only can we find joy. “True, pure joy,” says Amiel, “consists in the union of the individual will with the divine will, and in the faith that this supreme will is directed by love.”
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