Think On These Things # 2

 Think On These Things # 2

We are continually meeting those who are discouraged, who have fallen under the shadow of misfortune, who have done wrong, perhaps, and are suffering in reputation; or who have been unjustly treated - and are enduring the sting. These are the people to whom our love should go out in words of hope and cheer, instead of blame.

One of the most significant words of personal experience in the Old Testament, is that in which David tells us, at the close of his wonderful life, that all he had attained and achieved he owed to God's gentleness. "Your gentleness has made me great!" If God had been harsh with him - stern, critical, severely exacting, David never would have reached the noble life, with its wonderful achievements, which he finally attained. If God had been severe with him after his falls and failures, David never would have risen to power and distinction. God's gentleness made him great. We can help others to become great only by being patient with them. Men and women everywhere need nothing so much as gentleness.

Are not many of us too brusque with each other? Do we not lack in kindliness, in patience, in tenderness? Some men would have to believe that gentleness is an unmanly quality. But it is not; rudeness and harshness are always unmanly, gentleness is divine. For many people, life is not easy, and we make it very much harder for them to live worthily - when we deal harshly, when we are exacting, when we chide or blame them, or when we exercise our wits in saying smart, cutting, and irritating things to annoy and vex them. If was said of William Cullen Bryant, that he treated every neighbor as if he were an angel in disguise. That is, he had a feeling akin to reverence for everyone who entered his presence. We do not know to who we are speaking, when we meet a stranger. Let us treat him as the poet did his neighbor - as if he were an angel.

Someone defines a gentlemen, as one who never needlessly causes pain to another. If we are followers of Christ, we have no right to be ungentle, to be ill-mannered, to act disagreeably, and to treat anyone rudely, brusquely. "If there is any virtue, if there is any thing praiseworthy, think on these things." We should never forget the teaching of our Master - that the hungry person we feed in His name, the sick person we visit, the stranger to whom we show kindness, the discouraged person we encourage, the fainting one we lift up and start on his way again - is the Master Himself. "Inasmuch as you did it unto one of these y brethren, even these least - you did it unto Me." How would we treat Jesus if we found Him in any condition of need? That is to be the test in our dealings with men. We dare not to be ungentle to anyone - it may be an angel in disguise; it may be Christ Himself!

The teaching applies to our own personal experience of sorrow. We should seek the line of brightness in any dark picture, and think of that. And there always are breaks in the clouds through which we can see the blue and the stars. No lot in life is ever so utterly hopeless as to have in it nothing to alleviate its unhappiness. There is always something of brightness, one line, at least, in the darkest experience.

There always are comforts, no matter how great the sorrow. Every cloud has in it some bit of silver lining. There are hopes, consolations, encouragements, in every experience of grief or loss, and we are to think of these - and not alone of the sad elements in the experience.

Think of the good - not the evil. Think on the loveliness - not on the disfigurements. Think on pure - not on the soiled. Think on the hopeful things in others - their possibilities of nobleness, not on their faults. In sorrow find the face of Christ, and gaze on that until you forget your grief in all life, if there is any virtue, any thing pariseworthy, any beauty, any joy - think on these things, and it will lift up your life into strength, nobleness, divineness!

~J. R. Miller~

(The End)