| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 16 |
Page 3 |
Then there are days in every life when there would seem to be no spiritual advancement. We all have our discouraging days. We have days that are stained by folly, marred by mistakes, blurred and blotted by sin, and these seem to be lost days. There are days when we appear to fail in duty or in self-control, or in struggle with temptation. The inner man would appear to be crippled and hurt in such experiences as these, and the days would seem to be idle and useless, without profit or progress. We come to the evening with sad confessions of failure, and with painful regret and disheartenment. But even such times as these are really gaining times, if we are living near the heart of Christ. We are at least learning our own weakness and frailty, the folly of self-dependence, the feebleness of our own best resolves. Ofttimes our defeats prove our greatest blessings. No doubt many of our richest gains are made on the very days on which we weep most sorely over our mistakes and failures.
Then there are days that are broken by sorrow. The lights go out in our sky and leave us in darkness. The friends of many years are taken away from us. Prosperity is turned to adversity. Misfortune touches our interests. Our circumstances become painful. Is not the growth of the inner life interrupted by such experiences? Not if we are truly abiding in Christ and receiving from Him the grace He has to give. No doubt many of the best, the divinest blessings of spiritual life come to us on just such days. The photographer takes his sensitive plate into a dark place to develop his picture. Sunlight would mar it. God often draws the curtain upon us, and in the darkness brings out some rare beauty in our life, some delicate feature of His own loveliness.
The teaching of the Scriptures is that, whatever the experience of the outer life, the growth and enrichment of the inner life should never be interrupted or hindered. This is the Divine purpose for us. Provision is made for this continuous work in the grace of God. We need never be harmed by anything that breaks into our life. Indeed, there is nothing that touches us in any way that may not be made to minister good to us. Woundings of the outer life may become pearls in the soul. Losses of earthly things may become gains in the spiritual life. Sickness of the body may result in new health and vigour in the inner man. It is the privilege and the duty of the child of God to move upward and forward day by day, whatever the day’s experience may be.
This is the meaning of the promises of peace which are found so frequently in the Bible. We have no assurance of a life without strife, trial, trouble, earthly pain and loss; but we are assured that we may have unbroken peace without while the outer life is thus beset. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” “In Me ye shall have peace.”
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