| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 20 |
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True, our life is full of failures and blemishes. We mean to be loyal to Christ, but the world is hard and we are very weak. At the best, we get only little fragments of the beauty of Christ into our character. We are Christlike only in dim, blurred resemblances in our disposition and conduct. We intend to be gentle and loving, but we mar our days ofttimes with unhappy tempers, querulous bickerings, unseemly complaints, and selfish strivings. We intend to be strong in faith, allowing nothing to make us fear or doubt; but our trust fails us many times, and we grow fearful in life’s stress. We mean to be consistent Christians, to live blamelessly in this evil world; but our strength is small and temptation are sore; and where is the day which is not marred by failures?
When we come into the presence of Christ with our broken vows and our stained records, what can we say? Can we look up into His blessed face and declare that we love Him, with the memory of all our faults, inconsistencies, and failures fresh in mind? Is not our poor Christian life a denial of our fair profession? We might say that we are sorry and will not repeat these sins and follies; but have we not been saying that over and over, perhaps for years, and then almost immediately repeating the things we deplored and promised never to repeat?
What shall we do? If Christ were but a man like ourselves, judging of love by its deeds, we could not hope for His patient bearing with us. Men are not so tolerant of our failures. They grow weary of our broken vows. They do not know our inner life; they cannot see the sincerity which is in our heart beneath all that would seem to prove us insincere. But here it is that we find the comfort in Christ — in His perfect knowledge of us. He knows not only the sin and the wrong that are in us, but He knows also whatsoever in us is true and sincere. He sees the little true love — little, yet true — that there is amid the weakness, the broken vows, and the sad failures.
It was in Christ’s knowledge of him that Peter found his comfort, when, after his denials, Jesus asked him three times, “Lovest thou Me?” What could he say about his love, with that sad story of inconsistency so close behind him? He could take refuge only in the assurance that his master knew all — what was true and sincere, as well as what was so false and unworthy. “Thou knowest that I love Thee.”
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