The Habit of Enjoying the Disagreeable
The Habit of Enjoying the Disagreeable
Whereas he who has not these by him is blind, shortsighted, oblivious that he has been cleansed from his erstwhile sins. 2 Peter 1:9 (Moffatt)
In order to express what God’s grace has done in us we have to form habits until all habits are merged in the perfect relationship of love. It is the relationship of a child wherein we realise that everything which God tells us to do we must do and not debate. God’s commands are made to the life of His Son in us, not to our human nature; consequently all that God tells us to do is always humanly difficult; but it becomes divinely easy immediately we obey because our obedience has behind it all the omnipotent power of the grace of God.
The meaning of sanctification is that the Son of God is formed in us (Galatians 4:19); then our human nature has to be transfigured by His indwelling life, and this is where our action comes in. We have to put on the new man† in accordance with the life of the Son of God in us. If we refuse to be sanctified, there is no possibility of the Son of God being manifested in us, because we have prevented our lives being turned into a Bethlehem; we have not allowed the Spirit of God to bring forth the Son of God in us. Are we putting on the new man in accordance with the Son of God, or are we choking His life in us? If we allow things which do not spring from the Son of God, we will put His life in us to death. The historic life of our Lord is the type of the life that will be produced in us if we take care to work out what God works in. Our human nature is meant for the Son of God to manifest Himself in, and this brings us to the margin of our responsibility. Scriptural language may seem to destroy individual responsibility, but in reality it increases it a hundredfold. For example, to say with Paul—I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me—does not mean that I am without responsibility; it means that I have the responsibility now of seeing that the Son of God works through me all the time. I have to see that the outer courts in which He lives are kept in perfect trim for Him to work through. I must not allow them to be choked up with prejudices or notions of my own.
1. By Keeping Yourself Fit
But he that lacketh these things is blind . . .
When Christ is formed in us we have to see that our human nature acts in perfect obedience to all that the Son of God reveals. God does not supply us with character, He gives us the life of His Son and we can either ignore Him and refuse to obey Him, or we can so obey Him, so bring every thought and imagination into captivity, that the life of Jesus is manifested in our mortal flesh. It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the Son of God in our mortal flesh. Our responsibility is to keep ourselves fit to manifest Him.
Are we lacking in the things that Peter through the Spirit of God says we must add—the things which ought to mark the life of the saint? For instance, do we exhibit the virtue of self-control, the virtue of godliness, in the letters we write, in the conversations we hold? If not, then we not only give a wrong impression of the Son of God, but we hurt His life in us. If we are lacking in these things, it is because we have become short-sighted; we have forgotten that we have been cleansed from our old sins and are in imminent peril of being taken up with an experience and an illumination, and of forgetting that the life of Jesus is to be manifested in our mortal flesh.
The only way to keep yourself fit is by the discipline of the disagreeable. It is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether we are manifesting the life of the Son of God, or living a life which is antagonistic to Him. When disagreeable things happen, do we manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God or the essential irritation of ourselves apart from Him? Whenever self comes into the ascendant, the life of the Son of God in us is perverted and twisted; there is irritation, and His life suffers. We have to beware of every element in human nature which clamours for attention first. Growth in grace stops the moment we get huffed. We get huffed because we have a peculiar person to live with—just think of the disagreeable person you have been to God! Every disagreeable person you ever met is an objective picture of what you were like in the sight of God. We have to learn to get in the first blow at the thing that is unlike God in ourselves. We can take in our human nature the blow that was meant for Him and so prevent the tramp of feet on Him. That is what Paul means when he speaks of filling up “that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake.”
It is one thing to go into the disagreeable by God’s engineering, but another thing to go into it by choice. If God puts us there, He is amply sufficient. No matter how difficult the circumstances may lie, if we will let Jesus Christ manifest Himself in them, it will prove to be a new means of exhibiting the wonderful perfection and extraordinary purity of the Son of God. This keen enthusiasm of letting the Son of God manifest Himself in us is the only thing that will keep us enjoying the discipline of the disagreeable. “Let your light so shine before men. . . .” Our light is to shine in the darkness; it is not needed in the light. It is on earth, in this condition of things, that we have to see that the life of the Son of God is manifested in us, and we must keep ourselves fit to do it.
2. By Keeping Your Sight Fit
and cannot see afar off . . .
In human sight we soon lose the innocence of sight; we know what we see, but instead of trusting the innocence of sight we confuse it by trying to state what we ought to see. Jesus restores the spiritual innocence of sight—“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Paul said that he was sent by God to open men’s eyes. If you are being trained as an art student you will first of all be taught to see things as a whole, in mass outline, and then in detail. The meaning of perspective is that we keep the view of the whole whilst paying attention to the detail.
What is the thing that is pressing just now so that you cannot see aright? The reason it presses is that you have forgotten the One Who is far off to human sight, but very near to spiritual sight—God Himself. “And there we saw the giants . . . and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” When we see God we see neither the obstacle, nor ourselves, but, like Moses, we endure “as seeing Him Who is invisible.” Can I see the Invisible One in the thing that is nearest to me—my food, my clothes, my money, my friendships? Can I see these in the light of God? Everything that came into the life of our Lord externally was transfigured because He saw always Him Who is Invisible—“I knew that Thou hearest Me always”: “I do always those things that please Him.”
I cannot keep my sight right if I give way to self-pity. “Why should this happen to me?” To talk in that way is a grief to Jesus because it is a deliberate refusal on my part to take His yoke upon me. He was meek towards His Father’s dispensations for Him and never once murmured. The reason the thing has happened to you will only be seen when you are identified with Jesus in it; see that you remain in entire connection with Him. If you indulge in self-pity and the luxury of misery, it means that you have forgotten God, forgotten that you have been purged from your old sins, and that you have to put on the new man,† in accordance with the life of the Son of God in you.
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” The way to keep our sight fit is by looking at the things which are not seen, and external things become a glorious chance of enabling us to concentrate on the invisible things. Once we realise that God’s order comes to us in the passing moments, then nothing is unimportant. Every disagreeable thing is a new way of bringing us to realise the wonderful manifestation of the Son of God in that particular. What was the thing that obliterated God and you know it had no business to? You forget to take your heart to God and spill it. The thing that ought to make our hearts beat is a new way of manifesting the Son of God in us.
3. By Keeping Your Soul Fit
. . . and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
Jesus says that a man must lose his soul in order to find it—“whosoever will lose his life [i.e. soul] for My sake shall find it.”† Soul is “me,” my personal spirit, manifesting itself in my body, my way of estimating things. The incoming of the Holy Spirit into my spirit enables me to construct a new way of reasoning and looking at things. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Our Lord’s way of reasoning certainly is not ours naturally; we have to form His mind. We cannot form the mind of Christ without having His Spirit, but we may have the Spirit of Christ and refuse to form His mind. We cannot alter our reasoning until God calls us up short. We may have been going steadily on not realising that we had to readjust our views, and then the Holy Spirit brings to our conscious mind what we knew perfectly well, but had never seen in that connection before. There must be instant obedience. The moment we obey the light the Spirit of God brings, the mind of Jesus is formed in us in that particular, and we begin to reason as He reasons; but if we debate and go back to our old way of reasoning we grieve the Spirit of God. In new circumstances there are always readjustments to be made. No matter how disagreeable things may be, say—“Lord, I am delighted to obey Thee in this matter,” and instantly the Son of God presses to the front and in our human minds there is formed the way of reasoning that glorifies Jesus. We have to keep our soul fit to form the mind of Christ.