| The Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 3 |
This is the inner history of every praying life. We ask for things we desire, things which we think would make us happier. Yet these things which we think would be bread to our hearts would really prove a stone if we had them. Our Father will never give his child a stone for bread, and hence the story of much of our praying is a story of unanswered prayers — unanswered in a sense. The things we want must be given up. Self must die. Desire must yield. Faith must grow. Our wills must blend with God’s. Our restlessness must nestle in his rest. Our struggle must become quiet in his peace. We must be lifted up nearer to God. Such struggle costs — costs anguish and tears, but it brings us rich good. No doubt many of our best blessings come through God’s withholdings. Ofttimes it is more blessed to learn to do without things than it would be to get them. The prayer is not really unanswered in such cases. The things we asked for would not have been a blessing; but the very longing, though it was not satisfied, did us good, made us stronger, lifted us up into better life, while the lesson of submission learned through struggle and pain was rich in its discipline. It is in such experiences that we grow upward toward God. Writes Sarah K. Bolton:—
“Life is full of broken measures,
Objects unattained:
Sorrows intertwined with pleasures,
Losses of our costliest treasures,
Ere the heights be gained.
Every soul has aspiration
Still unsatisfied:
Memories that wake vibration
Of the heart in quick pulsation,
At the gifts denied.
We are better for the longing,
Stronger for the pain:
Souls at ease are nature wronging;—
Through the harrowed soul come thronging
Seeds, in sun and rain!
Broken measures, fine completeness
In the perfect whole:
Life is but a day in fleetness
Richer in all strength and sweetness
Grows the striving soul.”
But such lessons are not easily learned. Such discipline is not easily gotten. It always costs to pray the soul in calmness and peace. The struggle grows less and less as the praying goes on; the pleadings are less intense; at last they sob themselves into silence, and the lips speak with love and trust the word of submission. But is has been at sore cost that this result has been gained. It was the dying of self that was going on. Such praying costs.
Page 3