| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 7 |
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We have many illustrations of this in the Scriptures. For example, twice in the story of Joseph do we find him acting as an interpreter for God. Two of his fellow-prisoners had dreams. Joseph told them the meaning of the dreams. Pharaoh had a dream which Egypt’s wise men could not interpret, and Joseph was brought from his prison to tell its meaning. In both these cases the dreams were words of God, whose interpretation it was important to learn. In the case of the prisoners, the dreams were forecastings of the future of the two men. In the case of Pharaoh, they were revealings which the king needed to understand, in order that he might make provision for his people in the famine that was coming. It would have been a great calamity for Egypt and for the world if he had not learned the meaning of what God had spoken in his ear in the visions of the night. But without an interpreter he never could have known.
So we all stand in this world amid mysterious writings which we cannot read, having our dreams and visions, whose meanings we cannot ourselves interpret. Yet these writings and these visions are really God’s words to us, divine teachings which we ought to understand, whose meanings it is intended we should find out. They have their lessons for us, which we need to know. They hold messages of comfort for our sorrows, of guidance for our dark paths, of instruction for our ignorance, of salvation for our perishing souls. We cannot live as we should live until we learn the meaning of these divine words. We need interpreters.
Take the little child. It comes into the world knowing nothing. On all sides are wonderful things — in nature, in its own life, in other lives, in books, in art, in providence. But the writings are all mysterious. The child understands nothing. Yet it is here to learn all it can of these writings. They are words of God which concern its own welfare. The child needs interpreters. And we are all only children of various growths. Life is full of enigmas for us. We bend over the Bible and find texts we cannot understand. There are mysteries in providence; they come into every life at some time. Yet in these obscure texts and these dark providences there are words of God hidden, words of love, of wisdom, of mercy. We all need interpreters to read off for us the mysterious handwriting of God.
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