| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 3 |
Page 5 |
Every duty, however unwelcome, is a seed of light. To evade it or neglect it is to miss a blessing; to do it is to have the rough seed burst into beauty in the heart and life of the doer. We are continually coming up to stern and severe things, and often we are tempted to decline doing them. If we yield to such temptations, we shall reap no joy from God’s sowing of light for us; but if we take up the hard task, whatever it is, and do it cheerfully, we shall find blessing. Our duties are seeds of light.
God sows his seeds of light and gladness also in the providences of our lives. They do not always seem bright and good at the time. Sometimes, indeed, we cannot see anything beautiful in them, or anything good. For example, Joseph’s kidnapping and carrying into Egypt. No one supposes that the boy saw anything happy or radiant in the things that befell him at the hands of his brothers. There could scarcely have been the slightest gladness in his heart as he found himself hopelessly in the hands of his enemies. Yet that strange experience in the boy’s life was really a seed of light. It was only a see, however, at the time. It seemed then the utmost cruelty in the men who did it. Some people say about such a murderous piece of inhumanity, “How can God be kind, and permit such wickedness?” Still it was a seed of light and gladness, God used that terrible crime to enfold in itself a great blessing. Twenty years or so afterwards the seed had grown into a plant of good and blessing.
Some of the providences in all our lives come to us first in alarming and forbidding form. They are seeds of light which God has sown, but the light is not apparent. They come to us in losses, sufferings, disappointments. Yet they are seeds of light, and in due time the light will break out. At first they seem only destructive, but afterward blessing appears in them. We dread adversity, but when its work is finished, we find that we are enriched in heart and life. We are reluctant to accept painful providences; afterward we learn that our disappointments are divine appointments.
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