That, too, is possible only on condition of continual communion with
God. As I said in reference to joy, so I say in reference to
thankfulness; the look of things in this world depends very largely on
the colour of the spectacles through which you behold them.
'There's nothing either good or bad
But thinking makes it so.'
And if a man in communion with God looks at the events of his life as he
might put on a pair of coloured glasses to look at a landscape, it will
be tinted with a glory and a glow as he looks. The obligation to
gratitude, often neglected by us, is singularly, earnestly, and
frequently enjoined in the New Testament. I am afraid that the average
Christian man does not recognise its importance as an element in his
Christian experience. As directed to the past it means that we do not
forget, but that, as we look back, we see the meaning of these old days,
and their possible blessings, and the loving purposes which sent them, a
great deal more clearly than we did whilst we were passing through them.
The mountains that, when you are close to them, are barren rock and cold
snow, glow in the distance with royal purples. And so if we, from our
standing point in God, will look back on our lives, losses will disclose
themselves as gains, sorrows as harbingers of joy, conflict as a means
of peace, the crooked things will be straight, and the rough places
plain; and we may for every thing in the past give thanks, if only we
'pray without ceasing.' The exhortation as applied to the present means
that we bow our wills, that we believe that all things are working
together for our good, and that, like Job in his best moments, we shall
say, 'The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of
the Lord.' Ah, that is hard. It is possible, but it is only possible if
we 'pray without ceasing,' and dwell beside God all the days of our
lives, and all the hours of every day. Then, and only then, shall we be
able to thank Him for all the way by which He hath led us these many
years in the wilderness, that has been brightened by the pillar of cloud
by day, and the fire by night.