| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 19 |
Page 8 |
We are not to suppose that the bereavements and the common sorrows of which others know are all of the trials through which we must pass. Our bitterest griefs and struggles are endured in the sacred secrecy of our own heart, where no eye but God’s can see. We can make no step forward and upward in spiritual life but through battle, through victory over our old self. Something in self must die in every true gain we make in character. In the Revelation we read of certain great blessings which are offered to the followers of Christ, but every one of them waits beyond a line of battle. Only “to him that overcometh” are these prizes of character, these rewards for achievement, promised. There are other graves along our pathway besides those in which we lay away our beloved.
“What is thou buriest so softly and still?
Oh, this is the grave of my own proud will
I bid it sleep softly in death’s little room,
And my hopes, too, I bury with it in the tomb.”
It is these inward struggles and battles that most deeply scar our life. We come out of them bearing marks which we shall carry for ever. But these marks are not disfigurements; – they are lines which tell of spiritual gains. God is not hurt by the fire. The stone is not marred by the sculptor’s hewing. “While the marble wastes, the image grows.” At the last that which will be most beautiful in us will not be what we have saved from the hard blows of the hammer, but the marks which will tell of the deepest cuttings of the chisel.
Page 8