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“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” Cast it not away when Grief is a companion with whom you must learn to become acquainted—“Acquainted with grief”: the words are real now.
Two friends are bound together in love; the call to go to a foreign land for Christ comes to one; it does not come to the other. There must be renunciation then, or eternal loss.
Or something even more poignant happens. Both hear the call, one goes abroad. The other prepares to follow. But the providence of God holds that one at home. Constraint that nothing can weaken holds the other abroad. Who can measure spiritual pain? Who can weigh the exceeding and eternal weight of glory that is being wrought while the eyes of faith are fixed, not on the pain, but on that which lies beyond it? But of this good thing they see nothing yet, not even the shadow. They only know they will not serve their Lord together now.
Very tender comforts are prepared for such as these. They will find them as they go on.
But theirs is a pure sorrow. It is not touched by the soiled fingers of earth. Some find themselves in the midst of clouds and darkness because of the sinful deeds of others. And yet the wrongdoing of another should have no power to darken the way of a child of God. At such times our peace is found in believing that things that are not good can be caused to work together for good. They are all subject to Him whose works are very great and whose thoughts are very deep. “There is no mist over His eyes who is wonderful in counsel.”
The same word is comfort if the trouble be the result of our own doing. A wrong turning was taken at the foot of the hill. A wrong decision was made which has affected the whole course of life. The husband has been handicapped by a wife who can never enter into his deepest thoughts. The wife has been held from the highest she knew by the husband whose eyes were on the plains. Divided counsels in the bringing up of children tell upon the children. That means sorrow.
These circumstances were not the choice of God for those lives, but it is impossible to go back and begin again, and each day will bring its trials of patience and its private griefs.
View all this as a glorious chance to prove the power of your God to keep you in peace and in hope and in sweetness of spirit. In that sense “expose yourself” to those circumstances. Do not fret against them. Do not fret by a dour countenance those who cause them to be. “Beloved, let us love” is a wonderful word for such difficult situations. And love is happy, not dour.
Even if you seem to be pushing through some long-trailing wisp of cloud, like that which lies on the face of the Matterhorn, be of good cheer. Your God has not forsaken you. He has not said, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone”; a heart “let alone” feels nothing. Rather, indeed, the clouds are comforting: “Is my gloom, after all, the shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?” It was when He was coming to the relief of His servant that He was seen upon the wings of the wind, and He made darkness pavilions round about Him—even dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies (Psalm 18:11). So clouds assure us of His presence; for where pavilions are spread, there the King dwelleth.
Often we find ourselves in precipitous, perhaps cloudy places because of some act of obedience. Such acts are called “ventures of faith,” but there is no venture where faith is concerned. We walk on rock, not on quicksand, when we obey. But there is no promise that the rock will be a leveled path, or like the carpet of roses that Cleopatra spread for the officers of Mark Antony.
Sooner or later God meets every trusting child who is following Him up the mountain and says, “Now prove that you believe this that you have told Me you believe, and that you have taught others to believe.” Then is your opportunity. God knows, and you know, that there was always a hope in your heart that a certain way would not be yours. “Anything but that, Lord,” had been your earnest prayer. And then, perhaps quite suddenly, you found your feet set on that way, that and no other. Do you still hold fast to your faith that He maketh your way perfect?
It does not look perfect. It looks like a road that has lost its sense of direction: a broken road, a wandering road, a strange mistake. And yet, either it is perfect, or all that you have believed crumbles like a rope of sand in your hands. There is no middle choice between faith and despair.