Chapter V Concluded
St Paul did so. It is a delightful “therefore” with which he pursues his story. “Most gladly therefore,” therefore, because the Lord has said this, just for that reason, “will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me, may (literally) tabernacle upon me,” as the Shechinah-cloud upon the camp of Israel. And further, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
How far does he stand beyond mere resignation, in its ordinary sense! He does not merely endure; he does not merely go on with a sigh, which would signify a longing for other circumstances. Ah, he knows what sighs, what groans are. But for him, surely, they have become things not of the inmost depth; not of the spiritual centre. The central consciousness now, in Christ, who is in him, is a profound and holy pleasure in the Lord’s choice of circumstances, because they are chosen to serve the Lord’s purposes, and to develope His power. “I take pleasure in infirmities.”
Christian reader, is it so with you? Let me not assume that it is not. Thanks be to God, in all ages of His Church it has been so with many souls, who have learnt by grace the divine secret, the open secret, of the peace of simplicity, simplicity of relations with God in Christ as at once Father and Possessor. And in our own day a growing number of His people are entering with more and more distinctness into what is meant by this holy simplicity; not craving some new truth, but applying new trust to the old.
So I will assume that I speak to one who knows something of this chastened and Christian “pleasure.” Is it not a holy, a healthy thing, a thing of the daylight? Is it not wonderful in its elasticity, its solidity, its repose, its freedom? You have read of saints who, well qualified for active life and extended influence, have been shut up for long and rigorous imprisonments in days of persecution, such days as may return to us, and are abundantly possible now in many a distant land. To them, as you have read, strange and sweet joys have sprung out of their terrible restriction. Seeing in man’s wrong and cruelty the mere implement in their Lord and Father’s hand, they have mysteriously but really rejoiced in the cell, in the dungeon. “The stones of my prison walls,” says one saint, Madame de la Mothe Guyon,* “have often seemed as rubies in my eyes.” And this was no illusion on an excited brain, but the calm inference of a life hidden with Christ, and profoundly content to be a subject of His will and grace.
Well, the joy and peace of the martyr and confessor is a thing translatable, as you know, into the experience of very common days. What are your prison walls? Broken health, failing limbs, while you would chose to be all movement for God? Aching head, weary nerves, while it is your duty to be surrounded with toil and bustle? A sphere of service curiously unlike what you would have chosen, in view of your knowledge of your own capacities or weakness, yet in which you are to-day, and out of which your Lord does not – at least to-day – lead you? Home service, where you would prefer to be a missionary pioneer? A parish, when you would like to evangelize a province? A sick-room to fill with patient service, when you would like to organize a hospital? Study, when you would like out-door preaching? Out-door preaching, when you would chose study? A life of entirely secular conditions, when you would chose the holy ministry? Limited abilities, difficulty of speech, when you would like to be able, eloquent, for Christ? Poverty, when your heart aches for riches that you may spend for Him? Riches, when you would fain have done, for His sake, with their solemn responsibilities, and be free in the restful simplicity of humbler life? Surroundings marred by the mistakes and perhaps injustice of others, while you long for co-operation and intelligent, healthy sympathy?
You know, in all these things, what it is to “take pleasure.” They are delightful, not in themselves, but from this point of view. The restraint, the negative, has become blessed to you, for it is your Lord’s chosen opportunity for saying to you, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Your former fret and “worry” under circumstances are gone; for circumstances are literally as full as they can hold of occasions for the acceptance and working of His power. You would rather be weak, and the subject of His power, than be strong. You would rather be at uncongenial work, and have it filled with Him, than be at your most daring occupation, of your own mere will. In the mistakes, in the wrongdoings of man you yet see and welcome the unmistaking love and wisdom of your Lord. Your deep, calm, silent desire is that He should be glorified in you. And as this is manifestly, very often, best done “in your infirmities,” you can, you do, in Him, take pleasure in them. For infirmities of every scale, for little as for great, for great as for little, by a blessed inclusion, His grace is sufficient.
It is no exhausting process; so severe an effort to-day that it can scarcely be expected to be sustained to-morrow. It is not the emission so much as the reception of spiritual power. It is a profound contact with your Head, your life; “Jesus, your strength, your hope.”
It does not make you a visionary, or a fanatic. If trying circumstances change in some respects, you reasonably welcome the change, and remember that pain is never for its own sake good. But you have reaped, and reap, such disclosures of the Lord’s power out of “infirmities,” out of “distresses,” great or little, that you cannot help a certain love for them, for the sake of what goes with them. And so, if it is “given to you on behalf of Christ” to suffer special trial, of body, mind, means, work, surroundings of whatever sort, you meet it with a quiet welcome, and expect His overshadowing.
“’Tis your happiness below
Not to live without the Cross;
But your Saviour’s power to know,
Sanctifying every loss.”
*Madame Guyon undoubtedly was not exempt from errors, Romanist and other. But her sorrows and sufferings were due, above all things, to her testimony to the need and possibility of living a life hid with Christ in God.
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