'The land is Mine' was of course true in a special sense of the
territory which God gave by promise and miracle, which was kept by
obedience, and lost by rebellion. But it is as really true about our
possessions, and that not only because of our transient stay here. It
would be as true if we were to live in this world for ever. It will be
as true in heaven. Length of time makes no difference in this tenure.
Undisturbed possession for ever so long does not constitute ownership
here. God is possessor of all, by virtue of His very nature, by His
creation and preservation of us and of all things. So that when we talk
about 'mine' and 'thine,' we are only speaking a half truth. There is a
great sovereign 'His' behind both. So then let us take that thought
with us for use, as we pass into another year. What lessons does it
give?
It should nurture constant thankfulness. To-day looking back over
whatever dark, dreary, sunless days, we all have bright ones too. Does
any thought of God as the Fountain of all our joys and goods rise in
our souls? Have we learned to associate a divine hand and a Father's
will with them? Do we congratulate ourselves on our own cleverness,
tact, and skill, saying, 'mine hand hath done it,' or do we hug
ourselves on our own good fortune, and burn incense to chance and
'circumstances'?--or, sadder still, are we generously grateful to every
human friend that helps us, and unthankful only to God--or does the
glad thought come, to gild the finest gold of our possessions with new
brilliance and worth, and to paint and perfume the whitest lily of our
joys with new delightsomeness, 'All things come of Thee'; 'Thou makest
us drink of the river of Thy pleasures'? Blessed are they who, by the
magic glass of a thankful heart, see all things in God, and God in all
things. To them life is tenfold brighter, as a light plunged in oxygen
flames more intensely than in common air. The darkest night is filled
with light, and the loneliest place blazes with angel faces, and the
stoniest pillar is soft, to him who sees everywhere the ladder that
knits earth with heaven, and to whom all His blessings are as the
messengers that descend by it on errands of mercy, whose long shining
ranks lead up the eye and the heart to the loving God from whom they
come.
Here too is the ground for constant thankful submission. 'The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away.' We have no right to murmur,
however we may regret, if the Landowner takes back a bit of the land
which He has let us occupy. It was the condition of our occupation that
He should be at liberty to do so whenever He saw that it would be best
for us. He does not give us our little patches for His advantage, but
for ours, nor does He take them away at His own whim, but 'for our
profit.' We get more than full value for all the work and capital we
have expended, and His only reason for ever disturbing us is that we
may be driven to claim a better inheritance in Himself than we can find
even in the best of His gifts. So He sometimes gives, that we may be
led by our possessions to think lovingly of Him; and He sometimes
takes, that we may be led, in the hour of emptiness and loss, to
recognise whose hand it was that pulled up the props round which our
poor tendrils clung. But the opposite actions have the same purpose,
and like the up-and-down stroke of a piston, or the contrary motion of
two cogged wheels that play into each other, are meant to impel us in
one direction, even to the heart of God who is our home. A landowner
stops up a private road one day in a year, in order to assert his
right, and to remind the neighbourhood that he could stop it altogether
if he liked. So God reminds us by our losses and sorrows, of what we
are so apt to forget, and what it is such a joy to us to remember--His
possession of them all. Blessed be God! He teaches us in that fashion
far seldomer than in the other. Let joy teach us the lesson, and we
shall the less need 'the sternest' teacher 'and the best,' even sorrow.
Better to learn it by gladness than by tears; better to see it written
in 'laughing flowers' than in desolate gardens and killing frost.
So, too, there should be a constant sense of responsibility in the use
of all which we have. All is His, and He has given all to us, for a
purpose. So, plainly, we are but stewards, or trustees, and are bound
to employ everything, not according to our own inclination or notion of
what is right, but according to what, in the exercise of our best and
most impartial judgment, we believe to be the owner's will. Trusteeship
means that we take directions as to the employment of the property from
its owner. It means too that we employ it not for our own satisfaction
and well-being alone, though that is included, and is a part of His
purpose who 'delights in the prosperity of His servants.' Thoughts of
others, thoughts of the owner's claims, and of bringing back to Him all
that He has given to us, increased by our diligence, must be uppermost
in our minds, if we are to live nobly or happily here. 'It is required
in stewards that a man be found faithful.' And this applies to all we
have in mind, body, and estate. A thoughtful expenditure and use of all
His gifts, on principles drawn from our knowledge of His will, and for
objects not terminating with self, is the duty that corresponds to the
great fact of God's ownership of all. If we use His gifts to minister
to our own vanity or frivolity, or love of ease, or display; if an
'intolerable deal' of all we have is used for ourselves, and a poor
ha'porth' for others; if our gifts are grudging; if we possess without
sense of responsibility, and enjoy without thankfulness, and lose with
murmuring; if our hearts are more set on material prosperity than on
love and peace, knowledge and purity, noble lives and a Father God; if
higher desires and hopes are dying out as we 'get on' in the world, and
religious occupations which used to be pleasant are stale; then for all
our outward Christianity the stern old woe applies, 'Your riches are
corrupted, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you,' and we
need the shrill note of the trumpet of Jubilee to be blown in our ears,
'The land is Mine.'