Brethren! it is not sorrow that troubles us so much as resistance to
sorrow. It is not pain that lacerates; it cuts, and cuts clean when we
keep ourselves still and let it do its merciful ministry upon us. But it
is the plunging and struggling under the knife that makes the wounds
jagged and hard to heal. The man who bows his will to the Supreme, in
quiet acceptance of that which He sends, is never disturbed. Resistance
distracts and agitates; acquiescence brings a great calm. Submission is
peace. And when we have learned to bend our wills, and let God break
them, if that be His will, in order to bend them, then 'nothing shall by
any means hurt us'; and nothing shall by any means trouble us.
If you were ever on board a sailing-ship you know the difference between
its motion when it is beating up against the wind and when it is running
before it. In the one case all is agitation and uneasiness, in the other
all is smooth and frictionless and delicious. So, when we go with the
great stream, in not ignoble surrender, then we go quietly. It is God's
great intention, in all that befalls us in this life, to bring our wills
into conformity with His. Blessed is the ministry of sorrow and of pain
and of loss, if it does that for us, and disastrous and accursed is the
ministry of joy and success if it does not. There is no joy but calm,
and there is no calm but in--not the annihilation, but--the intensest
activity of will, in the act of submitting to that higher will, which is
discerned to be 'good,' and is gratefully taken as 'acceptable,' and
will one day be seen to have been 'perfect.' The joy and peace of a
submitted will are the secret of all true tranquillity.
III. Then again, there comes by such a love the peace of an obedient
life.
When once we have taken it (and faithfully adhere to the choice) as our
supreme desire to do God's will, we are delivered from almost all the
things that distract and disturb us. Away go all the storms of passion,
and we are no more at the mercy of vagrant inclinations. We are no
longer agitated by having to consult our own desires, and seeking to
find in them compass and guide for our lives--a hopeless attempt! All
these sources of agitation are dried up, and the man who has only this
desire, to do his duty because God has made it such, has an ever
powerful charm, which makes him tranquil whatever befalls.
And as thus we may be delivered from all the agitations and
cross-currents of conflicting wishes, inclinations, aims, which
otherwise would make a jumble and a chaos of our lives, so, on the other
hand, if for us the supreme desire is to obey God, then we are delivered
from the other great enemy to tranquillity--namely, anxious forecasting
of possible consequences of our actions, which robs so many of us of so
many quiet days. 'I do the little I can do,' said Faber, 'and leave the
rest with Thee,' and that will bring peace. Instead of wondering what is
to come of this step and that, whether our plans will turn out as we
hope, and so being at the mercy of contingencies impossible to be
forecasted, we cast all upon Him and say, 'I have nothing to do with the
far end of my actions. Thou givest them a body as it has pleased Thee. I
have to do with this end of my actions--their motive; and I will make
that right, and then it is Thy business to make the rest right.' And so,
'great peace have they which love Thy law.'
An obedient life not only delivers us from the distractions of
miscellaneous desires, and from the anxiety of unforeseen results, but
it contributes to tranquillity in another way. The thing that makes us
most uneasy is either sin done or duty neglected. Either of these,
however small it may appear, is like a horse-hair upon the sheets of a
bed, or a little wrinkle in that on which a man lies, disturbing all his
repose. No man is really at rest unless his conscience is clear. 'The
wicked is like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up
mire and dirt.' But if the uttered will of the Lord is our supreme
object, then in this direction, too, tranquillity is ours.