| J. R. Miller | Page 6 |
For one thing, we must remember that cheerfulness has to be learned. It does not come naturally. The cheerfulness which comes naturally is not that which our Master bids us to have. We are to be of good cheer in tribulation, and this certainly is not a natural experience. Nor doses Christian cheerfulness come as a direct gift from God when we become Christians. All the fine things in Christian nature and Christian culture have to be learned. Even Jesus himself “learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” When he was an old man, St. Paul wrote in a letter to some of his friends that he had learned in whatsoever state he was therein to be content. It is a comfort to us to think that Paul was not always thus contented, that he had to learn the lesson, and that it had taken him a long while to learn it.
We all have to learn the lessons of beautiful living. Life is a school, and God is continually setting new lessons for us. George MacDonald says: “Till a man has learned to be happy without the sunshine, and therein becomes capable of enjoying it perfectly, it is well that the shine and the shadow should be mingled, as God only knows how to mingle them.” ‘When we find ourselves facing some unpleasant duty or in the presence of a new trial or sorrow, we should not forget that it is another lesson set for us. If it is hard, that shows it is a lesson we have not yet perfectly learned. We must not be discouraged if cheerfulness is not easy for us. We have to learn it, and it may take us a good while.
If we would learn the lesson, we must abide in Christ. “In me ye may have peace,” he says. We can never: get the peace in anyother way. If we are truly experiencing the friendship of Christ, we shall find. the inner joy increasing just as the outer lights grow dim. Here, again, human friendship helps us to understand the devine. You walk with a friend for years in close, familiar relations, finding every day some new revealing of beauty. But as yet you have had only joy and prosperity. One day sorrow enters your life. In the new experience you find qualities in your friend’s love which you had never perceived before. It took suffering in you to bring out the rich things of sympathy, tenderness, and comfort which were all the while in reserve in his life.
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