We have all of us, I suppose, had experience of desires for the removal
of bitterness or sorrows, or for the fulfilment of expectations and
wishes, which we believed, on the best evidence that we could find, to
be in accordance with His will, and which we have been able to make
prayers out of, in true faith and submission, which prayers have had to
be offered over and over and over again, and no answer has come, It is
part of the method of Providence that the lifting away of the burden
and the coming of the desires should be a hope deferred. And instead of
stumbling at the mystery, or feeling as if it made a great demand upon
our faith, would it not be wiser for us to lay hold of that little word
of the Apostle's here, and to see in it a small window that opens out
on to a boundless prospect, and a glimpse into the very heart of the
divine motives in His dealings with us?
If we could once get that conviction into our hearts, how quietly we
should go about our work! What a beautiful and brave patience there
would be in us, if we habitually felt that the only reason which
actuates God's providence in its choice of times of fulfilling our
desires and lifting away our bitterness is our own good! Nothing but
the purest and simplest love, transparent and without a fold in it,
sways Him in all that He does. Why should it be so difficult for us to
believe this? If we were more in the way of looking at life, with all
its often unwelcome duty, and its arrows of pain and sorrow, and all
the disappointments and other ills that it is heir to, as a discipline,
and were to think less about the unpleasantness, and more about the
purpose, of what befalls us, we should find far less difficulty in
understanding that His delay is born of love, and is a token of His
tender care.
Sorrow is prolonged for the same reason as it was sent. It is of little
use to send it for a little while. In the majority of cases, time is an
element in its working its right effect upon us. If the weight is
lifted, the elastic substance beneath springs up again. As soon as the
wind passes over the cornfield, the bowing ears raise themselves. You
have to steep foul things in water for a good while before the pure
liquid washes out the stains. And so time is an element in all the good
that we get out of the discipline of life. Therefore, the same love
which sends must necessarily protract, beyond our desires, the
discipline under which we are put. If we thought of it, as I have said,
more frequently as discipline and schooling, and less frequently as
pain and a burden, we should understand the meaning of things a great
deal better than we do, and should be able to face them with braver
hearts, and with a patient, almost joyous, endurance.
If we think of some of the purposes of our sorrows and burdens, we
shall discern still more clearly that time is needed for accomplishing
them, and that, therefore, love must delay its coming to take them
away. For example, the object of them all, and the highest blessing
that any of us can obtain, is that our wills should be bent until they
coincide with God's, and that takes time. The shipwright, when he gets
a bit of timber that he wants to make a 'knee' out of, knows that to
mould it into the right form is not the work of a day. A will may be
_broken_ at a blow, but it will take a while to _bend_ it. And just
because swiftly passing disasters have little permanent effect in
moulding our wills, it is a blessing, and not an evil, to have some
standing fact in our lives, which will make a continual demand upon us
for continually repeated acts of bowing ourselves beneath His sweet,
though it may seem severe, will. God's love in Jesus Christ can give us
nothing better than the opportunity of bowing our wills to His, and
saying, 'Not mine, but Thine be done.' If that is why He stops on the
other side of Jordan, and does not come even to the loving messages of
beloved hearts, then He shows His love in the sweetest and the loftiest
form. So, dear friends, if you carry a lifelong sorrow, do not think
that it is a mystery why it should lie upon your shoulders when there
are omnipotence and an infinite heart in the heavens. If it has the
effect of bending you to His purpose, it is the truest token of His
loving care that He can send. In like manner, is it not worth carrying
a weight of unfulfilled wishes, and a weariness of unalleviated
sorrows, if these do teach us three things, which are one thing—faith,
endurance, prayerfulness, and so knit us by a threefold cord that
cannot be broken, to the very heart of God Himself?