1-The Sense Of Things
1—THE SENSE OF THINGS
I SEE in this valley and mountain a general view of our years. We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom Love has led over hill and dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside, and their word is always this: There are reasons and reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.
The mist and the clouds, and the light in the clouds, work together like separate notes in a tune; even the shadows of the pine trees on the grass have their part to play in making the picture. There is nothing that could be left out without loss. And it is so with the picture of our lives. We are called to believe this and to act as though we believed. (We were never meant to be like the host of the Egyptians when their chariot wheels fell off so that they drove them heavily.) We have the presence and the promises of God. We are meant to march to that great music.
Wrapped in the clouds and hidden by the mist is all that makes up life, its woods and ravines, its upland meadows where we go with much contentment, its hills called Difficulty, and its Delectable Mountains: in brief, its greater and smaller joys and sorrows, its trials of faith, disciplines, batterings of soul and body; all that our Saviour, in His story of the two builders, calls rain and floods and wind and the vehement beating of a stream.
There is no house of life out of reach of the stream. So, to be surprised when the rain descends and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon the house, as though some strange thing happened unto us, is unreasonable and unjust; it so miscalls our good Master, who never told us to build for fair weather or even to be careful to build out of reach of floods. “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” is not a fair-weather word. “My son, if thou comest to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation.” “Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ’s company, without a conflict and a cross.”
Even so, even though we must walk in the land of fear, there is no need to fear. The power of His resurrection comes before the fellowship of His sufferings.