| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 12 |
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Take the Christian doctrine of Divine providence. WE believe that this is our Father’s world, and that all things work together for good to them that love God. While all our affairs are prosperous, with nothing to interrupt our comfort, it is easy enough to formulate our faith. But when our condition changes, when the blue is hidden by sombre clouds, when the stars go out of sight, when prosperity gives way to loss and adversity, it is not so easy to maintain belief in the final outcome of good from all events. Most of us at least have to learn the lesson then anew, finding our way step by step through the dim shadows to the clear, full light of peace.
We all may learn many things from others who have gone over the way before us, and many things from book in which the lessons of other lives are enshrined; but, after all, each one of us must learn life’s real lessons in experiences of our own. However many before us have found goodness and mercy in life’s hard ways, and Divine comfort in life’s bitter sorrows, we cannot get these blessings until we have passed through the painful ways for ourselves. No other one’s experience will do for us.
Many good people are perplexed by troubles in their affairs. Their plans miscarry. Their harvest fails. They lose money. They find it hard to make ends meet so as to get daily bread. It need not be surprising that in such experiences anxiety creeps into the heart. Yet the Bible does not admit that there are any circumstances in which Christian confidence and peace should be disturbed. There are no experiences which the Divine promises do not cover. Our Lord’s counsel is simple, “Be not anxious for your life.” Then He gives sufficient reasons why we should not be anxious. St. Paul puts the lesson in like words, “Be anxious for nothing.” No room is left in the Divine life plan for worry or care. We have the promise of God’s own peace, and God never worries. Christ bequeathed His peace to His disciples, and in the sorest stress of His life He was never anxious.
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