| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 4 |
This fallen tree is an illustration of countless human lives which have fallen and seemed to fail, but which in time have proved to be bridges over which others can walk to honor, success, and triumph. We are all daily passing over bridges built of the toils, sacrifices, and failures of those who have gone before us. The luxury, ease, and comfort we now enjoy cost other men teas, pain, and loss. We cross continually to our blessings and privileges, our promised lands, our joys, on the bridges built for us by those who failed.
“And I say again, Count you the cost
Of this bridge? To what is it nailed?
What are its bulwarks piled high—these
You cross to the city of ease?
Man, I tell you, ‘tis built on the failed—
The fighters who lost.
Dryshod you reach your promised land now
On their failure—on those the world railed—
They the stuff of whom heroes are—
Who saw its light gleam from valleys afar,
And fought for it—died for it—failed—
No failure, I vow.”
Christ himself is the greatest example of this truth. His life was a failure as seen on the world-side. At three and thirty it was all over, the brightest light that ever shone on the earth quenched in the darkness of the cross. But now it is a bridge of agate, over which millions are passing from sin to holiness, from sorrow to joy, from death to life, from earth to heaven. Christ said, “I am the way… No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” So his failure became the saving of the world. It built the bridge over the chasm between earth and heaven, on which all who are saved pass over. We live because he died.
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