| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 3 |
Indeed, we never really see any of our friends. It is not the human form you can see that is the person you love. It is not your mother’s face and hair and hand and body that you love; it is her soul, her spirit. It is not her body that is gentle, patient, kind, thoughtful, and unselfish. A body cannot love. Even the loveliest face cannot itself be a benediction to you. It is the life that dwells in the body that is your mother. You can say of her, in a sense that is true, “Whom having not seen I love.” Take any friend whom is much to you, on whom you lean, and it is not the body that you love. There is sweetness in a face, kindly warmth in an eye, thrilling inspiration in a touch. Why? Because of the soul that is in the body. But the body is not your friend, whom you have really never seen, since you cannot see truth, purity, love, sympathy, constancy, and strength.
We cannot see Christ, but if we have become his, he is indeed our personal friend and is really to us all that such a divine Friend can be.
What is it in your best human friend that is most to you, on which you lean most in weakness, which comforts you most in sorrow, which is the best help to you in any need or trouble? Is it anything in your friend whom you can see? Is it not his truth, his wisdom, his love for you, his sympathy, his faithfulness, and his constancy? Even if he is not with you at all so that you can see him, is he not still a strength to you, a comfort, a refuge, a help? The consciousness that he is your friend; that whatever else may fail you he will not; that he sympathizes with you, understands you, will be patient with you; the assurance that if need be he will help you with all the capacity for helpfulness there is in him, -makes you strong, blesses you, gives you peace, though you see him not.
You cannot see Christ, but you believe that he is true, loving, faithful, touched with sympathy when you suffer; that he know all about you and loves you with a personal, deep, tender, strong, everlasting. You know, too, that he has all power and that all his power is yours to support, keep, bless, deliver, and protect, save you. You know that he has all wisdom – wisdom that never errs, that never counsels rashly, indiscreetly, short-sightedly, and that all this wisdom is for the guidance of your life, the ordering of your steps. As we think along these lines the unseen Christ becomes very real to us. Loving this Friend whom we cannot see becomes then blessed power in our life. For one thing we learn to trust him and leave in his hands all the affairs of our life. In whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye greatly rejoice.”
“I cannot know why suddenly the storm
Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath;
But this I know–God watches my entire path,
And I can trust.
I may not draw aside the mystic veil
That hides the unknown future from my sight,
Nor know if for me waits the dark or light;
But I can trust.
I have no power to look across the tide,
To see while here the land beyond the river;
But this I know–I shall be God’s forever;
So I can trust.”
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