| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 6 |
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The original word, scholars tells us, contains a fine sense which does not come out in the English translation. It means self-sufficing. St. Paul, as a Christian man, had in himself all that he needed to give him tranquility and peace, and therefore he was not dependent upon any external circumstances. Wherever he went, there was in him a competence, a fountain of supply, a self-sufficing. This is the true secret of Christian contentment, wherever it is found. We cannot make our own circumstances; we cannot keep away from our life the sickness, the pain, the sorrow, the misfortune; yet as Christians we are meant to live in any and all experiences in unbroken peace, in sweet restfulness of soul.
How may this unbroken content be obtained? St. Paul’s description of his own life gives us a hint as to the way he reached it. He says, “I have learned to be content.” It is no small comfort to us common people to get this from such a man. It tells us that even with him it was not always thus; that at first he probably chafed amid discomforts, and had to “learn” to be contented in trial. It did not come naturally to him, any more than it does to the rest of us, to have peace in the heart in the time of external strife.
Nor did this beautiful way of living come to him at once, as a divine gift, when he became a Christian. He was not miraculously helped to acquire contentment. It was not a special power or grace granted to him as an apostle. He tells us plainly in his old age that he had “learned” it. This means that he was not always able to say, “I am content in any state.” This way an attainment of his later years; and he reached it by struggle and by discipline, by learning in the school of Christ, by experience, just as all of us have to learn it, if we ever do, and as any of us may learn it if we will.
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