Heart Talks Part 13

So those spiritual clouds that were hanging so low above me and wrapping me in their somber shadows could not be blown away by my feeble breath. I had nearly worn myself out by my efforts, but had gained nothing at all. I had worried myself, and it was all to no purpose. As I looked back at the beginning of that season of heaviness and darkness, I could not see anything that I had done to bring it; it had just settled down upon me without any apparent reason, just as the clouds in the heavens come over the face of the sky without relation to any act of yours or mine.

Brother, sister, have you not had such experiences in your Christian life?

Have not darkness and gloom, heaviness and depression, come over your soul and you could not tell why? You began to question yourself, thinking that surely there must be something wrong. You doubted and wondered; you could not tell why you felt so. Perhaps for several days these feelings persisted. You resisted them. You prayed, you struggled. You searched yourself, but to no avail. The darkness still covered you; the heaviness still pressed you down. Possibly Satan also came with powers of accusation against your soul. You blew with all your might at the clouds, but still they lingered, and your heart was sorely troubled. By and by the clouds pa.s.sed away, the sunshine came, and your heart sang again. You knew not what carried the clouds away nor what brought the sunshine; nevertheless there it was illuminating, warming, and refreshing you again.

There are many times in our lives when the clouds come through no fault of ours. Nothing that we can do will keep them from coming. No matter how close we live to G.o.d, they will sometimes come. We can not hope that our sky will always be clear, but I hope you will get the lesson that G.o.d gave me that day, years ago. The same wind that brought that cloud over you will carry it away again.

Do not waste your strength struggling against your feelings; be patient and wait. Do not accuse yourself of having done wrong or of being wrong.

Do not take these gloomy feelings as evidence against yourself, any more than you would take the literal shadows of a cloudy day to prove you were not right.

If you have done wrong, G.o.d will show you just what the wrong has been, and he will also show you the way out. When the clouds come, then is the time to trust. If in your heart you mean to serve G.o.d, you know it, and he knows it. No matter how dark it may become, look up into his face and tell him that you mean to serve him no matter how things look, no matter how you feel. Our emotions are not governed by our wills-we can not feel as we please to feel; but we can be true when we will to be true, and we can wait and trust. We can not control circ.u.mstances; we can not help being affected by surrounding influences. These in a great measure rule our feelings. We can keep the citadel of our soul and not allow sin to enter.

Remember this one thing, that all your struggling is only blowing at the clouds. It is easier to struggle than to be quiet and trust, but it profits nothing. In a few days your gloomy feelings and heaviness and darkness will pa.s.s away without any effort on your part. It may be longer in pa.s.sing if you struggle against it. Just trust and wait; don't try to take the wind's task; let it do its own work. Then, when the sunshine comes again, you will not be worn out, but will be fresh and vigorous for the tasks that lie before you.

TALK FORTY-ONE. HOW TO FERTILIZE LOVE

Love is the greatest thing in earth or heaven. Out of it flows most of the things that are worth while in life. Love of relatives, love of friends, and love of the brethren (1 John 3: 14) make life worth living. There is no heart so empty as the heart that is without love. There is no life so joyful as the love-filled life. Love puts a song in the heart, a sparkle in the eye, a smile on the lips, and makes the whole being glad. And G.o.d's love is greater than all else. He who has G.o.d's love has a continual feast. There may be sorrow and care and suffering in the life; but if there is love, it lightens all these.

Sometimes there is not the love for the relatives that there ought to be.

Sometimes there is not the love for the brethren that should characterize us. When we realize this and feel our lack, the question naturally arises, "How can my love for them be increased?" Plants can not grow without fertility; that is, the soil must contain the elements necessary to growth. If these are absent, they must be supplied, or there can be no harvest. This is equally true of love; it must be fertilized if it is to grow. Do you realize that you are lacking in love for some one? Do you manifest as much affection toward your conjugal companion as you did in days gone by?

There are very many things that may choke out love in the home. One of these is the lack of kindness. If you have grown less kind in your feelings, in your actions, and in your words, love can not thrive.

Kindness is one of the best fertilizers for love. Do you show the same consideration for the feelings and tastes of your companion as you used to show? There are so many people who have two sets of tones in which to speak, and two sets of manners in which they act. They have their company manners and their family manners. When they have company, the voice is soft and pleasant, the manners are agreeable and kindly. They treat their friends with the greatest consideration; but as soon as their friends are gone, the pleasant voice changes into crossness or harshness and faultfinding, and the pleasantness of manner disappears. In how many homes is this true! The greater consideration, the greater kindness, is due the home folks. Otherwise, love can not flourish. If you wish to have love for your home folks, you must show them the consideration that is due them.

Some professors of religion are like the catbird. When it is away from its nest, it is one of the sweetest of the northern warblers, and so it is often called the northern mocking-bird; but when it is close to its nest, you will hear only a harsh, discordant note. It has no sweetness in its voice while at its nest. Some people reserve all their kindness, tenderness, and sweetness for those outside the family circle. Is it any wonder that love dies in such a home? If you realize you do not love some one enough, begin to consider his desires. Begin to show a special interest in him. Watch for opportunities to be kind to him. Try especially to be agreeable, and you will soon find that this reacts upon yourself; in a short time you will find your love increasing; and the more you follow this course, the more your love will increase.

I have been asked if we should love all saints the same. Some have even taught that if we were right in our souls we would love one of G.o.d's children as much as another. This, however, is not possible. Even Jesus loved some of his disciples more than others. There were three-James, Peter, and John-who were closer to him than the others; and of these, John was most beloved. He calls himself "that disciple whom Jesus loved." If love for the brethren depended solely on spiritual things, then, possibly we might love all the same; but it depends to a great extent on other things as well. Jesus loved John much because of John's loving nature. We love those most who seem to us most lovable. We are drawn most to those whose dispositions and characters and interests appeal most strongly to us. There are those who are saved, who, because of their faults or unlovely dispositions, repel us rather than attract us. We will not find ourselves drawn into the same close relations with them as with the others. There is danger of a twofold nature. On the one hand, we are liable to love some so much that we become partial towards them to such an extent that others will feel that we do not value them as we should. On the other hand, there is danger of looking at the unlovely qualities in another until we lose sight of the good that is in him, and grow prejudiced against him until it becomes hard to feel the proper love for him.

If we realize we do not love some of the brethren as we should, let us cease looking at the unlovely things, and look for the good things, the n.o.ble qualities. Seek out these things, keep them before the mind, overlook the faults and failings and unlovely traits. Begin to show special kindness, make it a point to speak to these brethren kindly; show an interest in them. Watch for a chance to do something helpful; go out of your way to do them favors. Possibly your own coldness has much to do with their att.i.tude and feelings. Be as genial and sunshiny toward them as you are toward your closest friends. Some reserved natures need sunshine to open them up, just as do some flowers. Have you not seen flowers open up in the sunshine and throw their fragrance upon the breezes, and then, as a heavy cloud suddenly overspread the sky and the dark shadows fell, quickly close up? It is just that way with some natures. If we radiate sunshine, they unfold their beauties to us; but if we are cold and distant, we are permitted to see only the rough exterior. Love begets love. If we so act that love in us may grow and develop, we shall be loved in return.

Love can not survive carelessness, indifference, and neglect. These things are poison to the tender plant. We can easily kill the love in our hearts, or we can cultivate and increase it till its blossoms and fragrance are the delight of our lives. If your love is not what it ought to be, try fertilizing it with kindness, gentleness, and self-sacrifice, and take away the weeds of selfishness, carelessness, and indifference. You will find that love will grow and increase, and become sweeter and more tender with the pa.s.sing days.

TALK FORTY-TWO. HOW TO OVERCOME DISAPPOINTMENT

You have been disappointed, haven't you? Of course you have, again and again. Does it hurt very much when things do not go as you have planned and hoped? Does it seem as if you "just can't stand it"? Some people can bear disappointment; they seem to have learned the secret of taking off the keen edge so that it does not hurt so much. Have you learned that secret yet? I fancy I hear some one say, "Oh! I wish I knew the secret."

There is more than one part to the secret. You may learn it if you will; you may get where you can bear disappointment and keep sweet all the time.

Many people prepare themselves to be disappointed; they arrange things so that they are certain to be disappointed. They set their heart so fully upon the thing they wish to have or do, whatever it may be, that they make no provision whatever, except to carry out their plans exactly as they have devised them. They do not provide for any contingencies that may arise. Their plans fill their whole horizon. They can see nothing else; they can think of nothing else; they want it just that way and no other way. Thus they prepare themselves to suffer keen disappointment should anything happen different from what they expect. This is what puts the sting in disappointment. Always make provision in your plans for whatever may happen. Always make your promises to yourself with the proviso, "If nothing prevents." If you are going on a journey, say, "If it does not rain, or if I am well, or if this or that does not prevent." Keep the thought in your mind that something may prevent, and do not get it too much settled as a fact that you will do what you have planned. Take into consideration that you are a servant, not the master; do not forget to put in, "If the Lord wills."

If disappointment comes, it may be necessary for us to repress our feelings of dissatisfaction. If we begin pitying ourselves and saying, "Oh, it is too bad! it is just too bad!" we shall only feel the more keenly the hurt; and the more we cultivate the habit of self-pity, the more power it exercises over us. Some people have so yielded to the power of self-pity that whole days are darkened by little trifling disappointments that they ought to throw off in a few minutes. Nine tenths of the suffering that comes from disappointment has its root in self-pity.

You have better qualities in you; use them. When you are disappointed, take hold of yourself and say, "Here, you can not afford to be miserable all day because of this." Repress those feelings of self-pity, lift up your head, get your eyes on something else, begin making some new plans.

Your old plans are like a broken dish and you can not use them any longer.

All your fretting and brooding over them will not make them work out right. Take a new start, smile whether you feel like it or not. You have many other things to enjoy; do not let this one thing spoil them all.

Refuse to think of your unpleasant feelings; resolutely shut the door against them. G.o.d will help you if you try.

Another thing to learn is to submit the will and desires to G.o.d. When our plans fail, we must submit to circ.u.mstances, whether we want to or not. If we rebel, that will not change the circ.u.mstances, but it will change our feelings. The more we rebel, the more we shall suffer. The way to get rid of the suffering is to get rid of the rebellion. We must submit; therefore, why not do it gracefully? Many times we can not change circ.u.mstances, no matter how much we dislike them. Resentment will not hurt circ.u.mstances, but it will hurt us. We need to learn the lesson of submission without rebellion-submission to circ.u.mstances and to G.o.d.

The Lord is our Master. It is right for him to order our lives as he sees best. Sometimes it is he who changes our plans for his own purpose; and when he does this, the outcome is always better than the thing of our own choosing. If we rebel, we are rebelling against G.o.d, and right there lies the danger. If we are so determined to have our own way that we do not willingly submit to G.o.d's way, he may have to let us suffer. But when we submit and commit our ways to him, then we shall have the consolation and comfort of his Holy Spirit. If we will just learn to change a single letter in disappointment, and spell it with an "h" instead of a "d," it will help take the sting out. Try it once. This is what we have: His appointment. Now, does not that make it quite different?

TALK FORTY-THREE. THE BIG END OF TROUBLE

I once saw in a paper some verses the first lines of which were something like the following:

"Trouble has a way of coming Big end first; And when seen at its appearing, Looks its very worst."

Many people are always seeing trouble. They are "troubled on every side."

When they talk, it is generally to tell of their trouble. There are others who, though they have troubles, seem able to put them in the background, and say but little about them. They talk of victory, of the Lord's help, and of the joys of salvation. We all have our troubles; for man is "of few days, and full of trouble," but the greatest troubles any of us have, I think, are the ones that never come. How truly the poet has spoken in the above-quoted lines! Just as he says, trouble comes big end first and fills us with forebodings.

How easy it is to worry over the troubles that loom up in the future. "Oh, how shall we meet them!" we exclaim. "Oh, I do not see what I shall do!"

and we fear and tremble before them. Nearly all the joy is excluded from some people's lives by the shadow of coming troubles; but when those troubles come upon us, we someway, somehow, pa.s.s through them. Many of them, and sometimes very threatening ones, disappear entirely before we reach them; and the others, when they do come, are usually not nearly so bad as we had thought they were going to be. We always find a way through them. Many times we are surprized at the ease with which we overcome them.

One brother who had been troubled all his life was finally enabled to see that the Lord always made a way through for him, and in speaking of it he said, "Things nearly always turn out better than I think they are going to."

A young brother and I once had an experience that well ill.u.s.trates how trouble works. We were going to meeting one night. There was such a heavy fog, that we could see only a few feet ahead of us. Suddenly there loomed before us what appeared to be a great giant. He came striding toward us through the fog with legs twenty feet long and body towering up out of sight. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle and at first sight startled us.

There it was, coming right toward us in a most threatening manner. If we had been frightened and had run away, we might have had a great story to tell; but we continued walking on toward it, when suddenly we came face to face with one of our neighbors. He was only an ordinary-sized man, and there was nothing terrible about him; but he was carrying a lantern, which swung partly behind him, and as he walked threw that gigantic shadow forward into the fog. The giant that we saw was not the real man; it was only his shadow.

That is just the way trouble comes. The thing we see is not really the approaching trouble in its true size and shape; it is only the shadow of it that we see. Our imagination pictures it as something terrible, and we worry and live in its shadow for days and weeks, only to find at last that we have been scared by a shadow and that the real trouble is only a fraction of what we supposed it would be.

When Alexander the Great was a youth, his father had a war-horse that no one could ride. The youthful prince made up his mind to conquer the animal. When he tried it, he discovered that the horse was afraid of its shadow; so he turned its head toward the sun and soon had it conquered.

Let us learn a lesson from this, and when we become afraid of the shadows of trouble, let us turn our faces toward the Sun of Righteousness, thus leaving the shadows behind us. The Scripture says: "The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee" (Psa. 9: 9, 10).

David said: "Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavillion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.

And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me"

(Psa. 27: 3, 5, 6).

O troubled soul, instead of looking at your troubles, look to Jesus. The more you look at your troubles, the worse they will appear, the more you will be troubled, and the less you will see of G.o.d and his help. Do you not know that G.o.d loves you? do you not know that he sees the trouble? do you not know that he knows the best way to meet it, and just exactly how much grace you will need? Instead of worrying, try trusting; you will find it works much better. Cultivate the habit of casting your care upon Jesus.

Face your troubles boldly. a.s.sert in your soul: "The Lord will make a way.

The Lord will help me through." Continue repeating it until it becomes real to you, and you will be surprized how simple trust will take you through to victory.