| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 6 |
Page 7 |
St. Paul knew this secret. He cheerfully gave up all that this world had for him. Money had no power over him. He knew how to live in plenty; but he did not fret when want came instead. He was content in any trial, because earth meant so little and Christ meant so much to him. He did not need the things he did not have; he was not made poor by the things he lost; he was not vexed by the sufferings he had to endure, because the sources of his life were in heaven, and could not be touched by earthly experiences of pain or loss. George MacDonald’s words are very true: “In life, troubles will come which look as if they would never pass away. The night and the storm look as if they would last forever, but the calm and the morning cannot be stopped. The storm in its very nature is transient. The efforts of nature, as that of the human heart, ever are to return to repose; for God is peace.”
“We bless thee for thy peace, O God,
Deep as the soundless sea,
Which falls like sunshine on the road
Of those who trust in thee;
That peace which suffers and is strong,
Trusts where it cannot see;
Deems not the trial way too long,
But leaves the end with thee.”
These are hints of the way we may learn in whatsoever state we are, therein to be content. Surely the lesson is worth learning! One year of sweet content amid earth’s troublous scenes is better than a whole lifetime of vexed, restless discontent. The lesson can be learned, too, by any one who is truly Christ’s disciple; for did not the Master say, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you”?
The artist painted life as a dark, storm-swept sea, covered with wrecks. Then out of the midst of the wild waves he made to rise a great rock, in a cleft of which, high up, amid herbage and flowers, he painted a dove sitting quietly on her nest. It is a picture of Christian peace in the midst of this world’s strifes and storms. In the cleft of the Rock is the home of content.
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