| Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 3 |
Page 4 |
It is when we go forward confidently in the way of duty that the strength is given. There must also be faith. We cannot do these things ourselves; there is not sufficient strength in us. But when we, without doubting, begin to do God’s will, He will put His strength into us. Thus, whatever the task He gives, we may say with quiet confidence, “We are able.” Whatever burden He lays upon us, we need not falter, nor fear to try to bear it. There is no Divine promise that the burden will be lifted away, but there is an assurance that we shall be sustained as we walk in faith beneath it.
But this sustaining comes not to him who falters and hesitate; it comes to him only who goes forward firmly in the way that is marked out for him. It comes not to him who waits for the opening of the way before he wills set out; the way will open only to the feet of him who goes on unflinchingly and unquestioningly in obedience to the call of duty, regardless of high walls or shut gates or overflowing rivers crossing his path. The floods of the Jordan were not cut off while the pilgrim host lay back in their camps, nor while they were moving down the green banks, nor even while they tarried close to the brink, waiting for a way to be made for them. It was not until the feet of the priests who led the host, moving firmly on, trod the very edge of the water that the river opened to allow them to pass through to the land of promise. It never would have opened to feet that waited on the bank for it to open. It is so in all cases. There is a time for quiet, patient waiting — when we have done all we can. But there is a time when waiting is defeat and failure.
To none of us, if we are living earnestly, can life be easy. Duties are too large for our ability. Circumstances are hard. Our condition has its uncongenialities. Our tasks are more than our hands can perform. We are disposed to fret and to be discontented, and then to be discouraged, and to say we cannot live sweetly and beautifully where our lot is set. But this is never true. Difficulty never makes impossibility when we have the power of Christ from which to draw. No duties then are ever too large. No burdens are ever too heavy. There is no environment in which we cannot live patiently and sweetly.
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