| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 13 |
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However, there is a way of relating ourselves to the incidents of life through which we must pass, so that none of them shall work us injury. There is no power in sorrow, pain, temptation, or injustice, which can hurt us, unless in some way we fail in our own duty in meeting the experience. No one can harm us but ourselves. It was a saying of Bernard, “Nothing can work me damage but myself. The harm I sustain I carry about with me, and I never am a real sufferer but by my own faults.”
These words are true. When Jesus was committing His disciples to His Father’s care, as He was about to leave them in this world, His prayer for them was, that they might be kept from the evil. He did not say evils – there is but one evil. He did not ask that they should be kept from struggle, from suffering, from earthly loss, or from wrong or persecution. These are not evils; in themselves they have no power to hurt the Christian’s true life. The only evil in all the world is sin. So long as we do not sin, we have not been actually hurt by any experience. Our body may be mangled, cut to pieces, or burned in the flames; but so long as we do not sin in thought, feeling, or act, we have received no trace of real harm.
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