IRON SHOES FOR ROUGH ROADS.
"Our feeble frame he knoweth,
Remembereth we are dust;
And evermore his face is kind,
His ways are ever just.
In evil and in blindness,
Through darkened maze we rove,
But still our Father leads us home,
By strength of mighty love."
--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
The matter of shoes is important. Especially is this true when the
roads are rough and hard. We cannot then get along without something
strong and comfortable to wear on our feet. One would scarcely expect
to find anything in the Bible about such a need as this. Yet it only
shows how truly the Bible is fitted to all our actual life to discover
in it a promise referring to shoes.
In the blessing of Moses, pronounced before his death upon the several
tribes, there was this among other things for Asher: "Thy shoes shall
be iron." A little geographical note will help to make the meaning
plain. Part of Asher's allotted portion was hilly and rugged. Common
sandals, made of wood or leather, would not endure the wear and tear of
the sharp, flinty rocks. There was need, therefore, for some special
kind of shoes. Hence the form of the promise: "Thy shoes shall be
iron."
Even the Bible words which took the most vivid local coloring from the
particular circumstances in which they were originally spoken, are yet
as true for us as they were for those to whom they first came. We have
only to get disentangled from the local allusions the real heart of the
meaning of the words, and we have an eternal promise which every child
of God may claim.
Turning, then, this old-time assurance into a word for
nineteenth-century pilgrims, we get from it some important suggestions.
For one thing it tells us that we may have some rugged pieces of road
before we get to the end of our life-journey. If not, what need would
there be for iron shoes? If the way is to be flower-strewn, velvet
slippers, as Dr. McLaren somewhere suggests, would do. No man wants
iron-soled shoes for a walk through a soft meadow. The journey is not
likely to be all easy. Indeed, an earnest Christian life is never
easy. No one can live nobly and worthily without struggle, battle,
self-denial. One may find easy ways, but they are not the worthiest
ways. They do not lead upward to the noblest things. One reason why
many people never grasp the visions of beauty and splendor which shine
before them in early years is because they have not courage for rough
climbing.
"I reach a duty, yet I do it not,
And, therefore, climb no higher; but if done,
My view is brightened, and another spot
Seen on my mortal sun;
For be the duty high as angel's flight--
Fulfil it, and a higher will arise
Even from its ashes. Duty is our ladder to the skies,
And climbing not, we fall."
We shall need our iron shoes if we are to make the journey that leads
upward to the best possibilities of our life.
But the word is not merely a prophecy of rugged paths; it is also a
promise of shoeing for the road, whatever it may be. One who is
preparing to climb a mountain, craggy and precipitous, would not put on
silk slippers; he would get strong, tough shoes, with heavy nails in
the soles. When God sends us on a journey over steep and flinty paths
he will not fail to provide us with suitable shoes.
Asher's portion was not an accidental one; it was of God's choosing.
Nor is there any accident in the ordering of the place, the conditions,
the circumstances, of any child of God's. Our times are in God's
hands. No doubt, then, the hardnesses and difficulties of any one's
lot are part of the divine ordering for the best growth of the person's
life.
There was a compensation in Asher's rough portion. His rugged hills
had iron in them. This law of compensation runs through all God's
distribution of gifts. In the animal world there is a wonderful
harmony, often noted, between the creatures and the circumstances and
conditions amid which they are placed. The same law rules in the
providence of human life. One man's farm is hilly and hard to till,
but deep down beneath its ruggedness, buried away in its rocks, there
are rich minerals. One person's lot in life is hard, with peculiar
obstacles, difficulties and trials; but hidden in it there are
compensations of some kind. One young man is reared in affluence and
luxury. He never experiences want or self-denial, never has to
struggle with obstacles or adverse circumstances. Another is reared in
poverty and has to toil and suffer privation. The latter seems to have
scarcely an equal chance in life. But we all know where the
compensation lies in this case. It is in such circumstances that grand
manhood is grown, while too often the petted, pampered sons of luxury
come to nothing. In the rugged hills of toil and hardship, life's
finest gold is found.
There are few things from which young people of wealthy families suffer
more than from over-help. No noble-spirited young man wants life made
too easy for him by the toil of others. What he desires is an
opportunity to work for himself. There are some things no other one
can give us; we must get them for ourselves. Our bodies must grow
through our own exertions. Our minds must be disciplined through our
own study. Our hearts' powers must be developed and trained through
our own loving and doing. One writes of two friends and two ways of
showing friendship:--
"One brought a crystal goblet overfull
Of water he had dipped from flowing streams
That rose afar where I had never trod--
Too far for even my quickened eye to see.
They were fair heights, familiar to his feet--
They were cool springs that greeted him at morn,
And made him fresh when noon was burning high,
And sang to him when all the stars were out;
His hand had led them forth, and their pure life
Was husbanded, with sacred thrift, for flower,
And bird, and beast, and man. The hills were his,
And his the bright, sweet water. Not to me
Came its renewal. I was still athirst.
"The other looked upon me graciously,
Beheld me wasted with my bitter need,
And gave me--nothing. With a face severe,
And prophet brow, he bade me quickly seek
My own hard quarry--there hew out a way
For the imprisoned waters to flow forth
Unhindered by the stubborn granite blocks
That shut them in dark channels. I sprung up,
For that I knew my Master; and I smote,
Even as Moses, my gray, barren rock,
And found sufficient help for all my house,
All my servants, all my flocks and herds."
The best friend we can have is the one, not who digs out the treasure
for us, but who teaches and inspires us with our own hands to open the
rocks and find the treasures for ourselves. The digging out of the
iron will do us more good than even the iron itself when it is dug out.
Shoes of iron are promised only to those who are to have rugged roads,
not to those whose path lies amid the flowers. There is a comforting
suggestion here for all who find peculiar hardness in their life.
Peculiar favor is pledged to them. God will provide for the ruggedness
of their way. They will have a divine blessing which would not be
theirs but for the roughness and ruggedness. The Hebrew parallelism
gives the same promise, without figure, in the remaining words of the
same verse: "As thy days so shall thy strength be." Be sure, if your
path is rougher than mine, you will get more help than I will. There
is a most delicate connection between earth's needs and heaven's grace.
Days of struggle get more grace than calm, quiet days. When night
comes stars shine out which never would have appeared had not the sun
gone down. Sorrow draws comfort that never would have come in joy.
For the rough roads there are iron shoes.
There is yet another suggestion in this old-time promise. The divine
blessing for every experience is folded up in the experience itself,
and will not be received in advance. The iron shoes would not be given
until the rough roads were reached. There was no need for them until
then, and besides, the iron to make them was treasured in the rugged
hills and could not be gotten until the hills were reached.
A great many people worry about the future. They vex themselves by
anxious questioning as to how they are going to get through certain
anticipated experiences. We had better learn once for all that there
are in the Bible no promises of provision for needs while the needs are
yet future. God does not put strength into our arms to-day for the
battles of to-morrow; but when the conflict is actually upon us, the
strength comes. "As thy days so shall thy strength be."
Some people are forever unwisely testing themselves by questions like
these: "Could I endure sore bereavement? Have I grace enough to bow in
submission to God, if he were to take away my dearest treasure? Or
could I meet death without fear?" Such questions are unwise, because
there is no promise of grace to meet trial when there is no trial to be
met. There is no assurance of strength to bear great burdens when
there are no great burdens to be borne. Help to endure temptation is
not promised when there are no temptations to be endured. Grace for
dying is nowhere promised while death is yet far off and while one's
duty is to live.
"Of all the tender guards which Jesus drew
About our frail humanity, to stay
The pressure and the jostle that alway
Are ready to disturb, what'er we do,
And mar the work our hands would carry through,
None more than this environs us each day
With kindly wardenship--'Therefore, I say,
Take no thought for the morrow.' Yet we pay
The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent
To bear the burden of the imperious Now,
Assume, the future's exigence unsent.
God grants no overplus of power: 'tis shed
Like morning manna. Yet we dare to bow
And ask, 'Give us to-day our _morrow's_ bread.'"
There is a story of shipwreck which yields an illustration that comes
in just here. Crew and passengers had to leave the broken vessel and
take to the boats. The sea was rough, and great care in rowing and
steering was necessary in order to guard the heavily-laden boats, not
from the ordinary waves, which they rode over easily, but from the
great cross-seas. Night was approaching, and the hearts of all sank as
they asked what they should do in the darkness when they would no
longer be able to see these terrible waves. To their great joy,
however, when it grew dark they discovered that they were in
phosphorescent waters and that each dangerous wave rolled up crested
with light which made it as clearly visible as if it were mid-day.
So it is that life's dreaded experiences, when we meet them, carry in
themselves the light which takes away the peril and the terror. The
night of sorrow comes with its own lamp of comfort. The hour of
weakness brings its own secret of strength. By the brink of the bitter
fountain itself grows the tree whose branch will heal the waters. The
wilderness with its hunger and no harvest has daily manna. In dark
Gethsemane, where the load is more than mortal heart can bear, an angel
appears, ministering strength that gives victory. When we come to the
hard, rough, steep path we find iron for shoes. The iron will be in
the very hills over which we shall have to climb.
So we see that the matter of shoes is very important. We are pilgrims
here and we cannot walk barefoot on this world's rugged roads. Are our
feet shod for the journey?
"How can I get shoes, and where?" one asks. Do you remember about
Christ's feet, that they were pierced with nails? Why was it? That we
might have shoes to wear on our feet, and that they might not be cut
and torn on the way.
Christ's dear feet were wounded and sore with long journeys over thorns
and stones, and were pierced through with cruel nails, that our feet
might be shod for earth's rough roads, and might at last enter the
gates of pearl and walk on heaven's gold-paved streets.
Dropping all figure, the whole lesson is that we cannot get along on
our life's pilgrimage without Christ; but having Christ we shall be
ready for anything that may come to us along the days and years.