| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 11 |
Page 4 |
Thomas’s mistake was that his gloom kept him from being present that night with the other apostles. Many people yield to discouragement, and discouragement hurts their lives. Discouragement is a sort of mental and spiritual malaria. It poisons the blood. Much of certain forms of sickness are only discouragement darkening the sky, putting gout the stars, quenching all joy and hope. It was discouragement which kept Thomas away from the meeting with the apostles that night. We see how that mistake almost wrecked everything for him. If Jesus had not been so marvelously patient with his gloomy, doubting disciple, giving him a second chance a week later, Thomas would never have recovered himself and got back into the apostolic family. But if he had been present at the meeting, he would have seen Jesus when the others did, and his discouragement would have been changed into faith, hope and joy.
We should lose no chance of seeing Christ. We should seek the places where he is most likely to come; we should be ready to hear every word that might reveal him. We should keep ourselves always in the light of the truth, in the shining of God’s face. Christ is always coming to show us his hands with the print of the nails, to prove to us that God loves us. If we are always present when he comes, we shall never miss the blessing which he brings, and our lives will always be full of gladness. But the trouble with too many of us is that we are not present when he comes. He comes continually in manifold ways. He comes in every flower that blooms, in every blade of grass that wave in the breeze, in every bird that sings, in every beautiful thing that grows. He comes in the sweet love of your home, in the laugh of your little child, in the kindness of your friend. He comes in all the blessings of the church, in the holy places of prayer.
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