| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 14 |
Page 4 |
We are not called in these days to suffer persecution in serving Christ, and therefore we cannot point to any such marks of Jesus as St. Paul bore. We have no weals on our back made by scourgings because we are Christians. We have no disfigurements telling of stonings because we loved Christ. Not many of us have suffered from exposure, or have lost our health, or worn out our strength, in Christian work. But if we are Christians at all, there are other memorials of struggle, self denial, and sacrifice, which God and angels see in our life. All our best lessons are learned at real cost. We reach the higher by trampling under our feet the lower. We attain beauty of spirit by the crucifying of the flesh. We get our moral strength out of struggle. No one ever rises into noble character in vales of ease, walking along mossy paths, merely having “a good time.” It is the life of toil, of conflict, of self denial, of pain, that makes the saints whose character shines in radiant beauty.
It is a strange story that of Jacob’s all night wrestle. In the morning he went from the Jabbok maimed, lame, limping, but a new man, with a new name, a victor over self, over his old nature. From that day, Jacob the supplanter was Israel, a prince with God. Through all his life, to its close, he limped when he walked; but his limping was the mark of God upon his body, a symbol of spiritual victory.
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