Peace! Is there in fact such a thing as an attainable habit of mind
that can remain at peace, no matter what external circumstances
may be? No matter what worries; no matter what perplexities, what
thwartings, what cares, what dangers; no matter what slanders, what
revilings, what persecutions--is it possible to keep an immovable
peace? When our dearest friends are taken from us, when those we
love are in deadly danger from hour to hour, is it possible still
to be in peace? When our plans of life are upset, when fortune
fails, when debt and embarrassment come down, is it possible to be
at peace? When suddenly called to die, or to face sorrows that are
worse than death, is it possible still to be at peace?
Yes, it is. This is the peculiarity of the Christian religion--the
special gift of Christ to every soul that will receive it from
him. In his hour of deepest anguish, when every earthly resort was
failing him, when he was about to be deserted, denied, betrayed,
tortured even unto death, he had this great gift of peace, and he
left it as a legacy to his followers:--
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as the
world giveth give I unto you."
He says himself that his peace is not what the world giveth. It does
not come from anything in this life; it cannot be taken away by
anything in this life; it is wholly divine. As a white dove looks
brighter and fairer against a black thunder-cloud, so Christ's peace
is brightest and sweetest in darkness and adversity.
Is not this rest of the soul, this perfect peace, worth having? Do
the majority of Christians have it? Would it not lengthen the days
and strengthen the health of many a man and woman if they could
attain it? But how shall we get this gift? That is an open secret.
St. Paul told it to the Philippians in one simple direction:--
"Be not anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God; and the peace of God that passeth understanding shall
keep your heart and mind."
There we have it.
Now if we look back to the history of these Philippians, as told in
the Book of Acts, we shall see that when Paul exhorted them never
to be anxious about anything, but always with thanksgiving to let
their wants be known to God, he preached exactly what they had seen
him practice among them. For this Philippian church was at first a
little handful of people gathered to Jesus by hearing Paul talk in
a prayer-meeting held one Sunday morning by the riverside. There
Lydia, the seller of fine linen from Thyatira, first believed with
her house, and a little band of Christians was gathered. But lo! in
the very commencement of the good work a tumult was raised, and Paul
and Silas were swooped down upon by the jealous Roman authorities,
ignominiously and cruelly scourged, and then carried to prison and
shut up with their feet fast in the stocks. Here was an opportunity
to test their serenity. Did their talisman work, or did it fail?
What did the Apostles do? We are told: "At midnight Paul and Silas
prayed and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them." That
prayer went up with a shout of victory--it was as Paul directs,
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Then came the opening of
prison doors, the loosing of bonds, and the jailer fell trembling
at the feet of his captives, saying, "Sirs, what must I do to be
saved?" And that night the jailer and all his house were added to
the church at Philippi. So, about eleven years after, when Paul's
letter came back from Rome to the Philippian church and was read out
in their prayer-meeting, we can believe that the old Roman jailer,
now a leading brother in the church, said, "Ay! ay! he teaches just
what he practised. I remember how he sung and rejoiced there in
that old prison at midnight. Nothing ever disturbs him." And they
remember, too, that this cheerful, joyful, courageous letter comes
from one who is again a prisoner, chained night and day to a Roman
soldier, and it gives all the more force to his inspiring direction:
"Be anxious for nothing--in everything, by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."
If Paul had been like us, now, how many excuses he might have had
for being in a habitual worry! How was he shut up and hindered in
his work of preaching the gospel. A prisoner at Rome while churches
that needed him were falling into divers temptations for want of
him--how he might have striven with his lot, how he might have
wondered why God allowed the enemy so to triumph.
But it appears he was perfectly quiet. "I know how to be abased,
and how to abound," he says; "everywhere, and in all things, I am
instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and
suffer need. I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth
me."
But say some, "Do you suppose if you go to God about everything that
troubles you it will do any good? If you do ask him for help, will
you get it?"
If this means, Will God always give you the blessing you want, or
remove the pain you feel, in answer to your prayer? the answer must
be, Certainly not.
Paul prayed often and with intense earnestness for the removal of
a trial so sharp and severe that he calls it a thorn in his flesh.
It was something that he felt to be unbearable, and he prayed the
Lord to take it away, but the Lord did not; he only said to him,
"My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in
weakness."
The permission in all things to let our requests be made known to
God would be a fatal one for us if it meant that God would always
give us what we ask. When we come to see the record of our life as
it is written in heaven, we shall see some of our best occasions of
thankfulness under the head of "prayers denied."
Did you ever see a little child rushing home from school in hot
haste, with glowing cheeks and tearful eyes, burning and smarting
under some fancied or real injustice or injury in his school life?
He runs through the street; he rushes into the house; he puts off
every one who tries to comfort him. "No, no! he doesn't want them;
he wants mother; he's going to tell mother." And when he finds her
he throws himself into her arms and sobs out to her all the tumult
of his feelings, right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable. "The
school is hateful; the teacher is hard, and the lessons are too
long; he can't learn them, and the boys laugh at him, and won't she
say he needn't go any more?"
Now, though the mother does not grant his foolish petitions, she
soothes him by sympathy; she calms him; she reasons with him; she
inspires him with courage to meet the necessary trials of school
life--in short, her grace is sufficient for her boy; her strength
perfects his weakness. He comes out tranquilized, calm, and
happy--not that he is going to get his own foolish wishes, but that
his mother has taken the matter in hand and is going to look into
it, and the right thing is going to be done.
This is an exact illustration of the kind of help it is for us
"in everything by prayer to make known our requests to God." The
very act of confidence is in itself tranquilizing, and the divine
sympathy meets and sustains it.
A large class of our annoyances and worries are extinguished or
lessened by the very act of trying to tell them to such a person as
Jesus Christ. They are our burning injuries, our sense of wrong and
injustice done us. When we go to tell Jesus how cruelly and wickedly
some other Christian has treated us, we immediately begin to feel as
a child who is telling his mother about his brother--both equally
dear. Our anger gradually changes to a kind of sorrow when we think
of Him as grieved by our differences. After all, we are speaking of
one whom Christ is caring for and bearing with just as he is caring
for us, and the thought takes away the edge of our indignation; a
place is found for peace.
Then there is still another class of troubles that would be cut off
and smothered altogether by the honest effort to tell them to our
Saviour. All the troubles that come from envy, from wanting to be
as fine, as distinguished, as successful as our neighbors; all the
troubles that come from running races with our neighbors in dress,
household show, parties, the strife "who shall be the greatest"
transferred to the little petty sphere of fashionable life--ah,
if those who are burdened with cares of this kind would just once
honestly bring them to Jesus and hear what he would have to say
about them! They might leave them at his feet and go away free and
happy.
But whatever burden or care we take to Jesus, if we would get the
peace promised, we must _leave_ it with Him as entirely as the
little child leaves his school troubles with his mother. We must
come away and treat it as a finality. We must say, Christ has taken
that. Christ will see about it. And then we must stop thinking and
worrying about it. We must resolve to be satisfied with whatever
may be his disposal of the matter, even if it is not at all what we
would have chosen.
Paul would much sooner have chosen to be free and travel through
the churches, but Christ decided to allow him to remain a chained
prisoner at Rome, and there Paul learned to rest, and he was happy
in Christ's will. Christ settled it for him, and he was at peace.
If, then, by following this one rule we can always be at rest, how
true are the lines of the hymn now so often sung:--
"Oh, what joy we often forfeit!
Oh, what needless pain we bear!
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer."