SUNDAY READING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16098, 11 December 1915, Page 8 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING.

.;;.-;;---,■-?.*: -«-:^vt;;,.;.;;;-,-,^i.;;;. : ■■/ ': ' ' *~**> ' ■ THE VALUE OF PAIN. BY S£V- HUGH BlliCK, B.l> Blessed be Us* Lord/- for He hatfeshawcd . wie * His marvellous*: lovinsr kindness aa * straws city.—Pa. T.'atnu.* 21 US.V.J. • • This psalm the review of a 'life, a hard and -sad* one' or the whole, yet • throughout sustained sincere faith and reachmg thitmgh. present distress to peace through "the assurance -of God. av It begins" with faith based on experience, and prayer built on recollection of past grace. He knaws he has submitted his heart;- to God, id, bent his life to God's will. And beeairee of that he knows he has been supported and strengthened and led out of dangers and distresses. "Into Thy hand I commend my spirit. Thou uast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth." More than once as life narrowed down, and the outlook had been straitened, he has been delivered, and his judgment of the past is, "Thou hast set my feet in a large place." The Test of Faith and Courage. But in spite of the experience of past mercy, he feels that the present is more grievous than anything before. In a fense, the past only makes the present more severe. The sunshine of God's favour on which he h?.s been meditating only casts into deeper shadow his distressful state. He is suffering so much pain of body and pain of heart, and with all pain of sense of sin. "My life is spent with sorrow and my years* with sighing. My strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are wasted away.'' What can man do to him in the covert of God's presence ? In haste, or rather in fear, what Keble calls "in my wild, hurrying heart," he had said, "I am cut off from before Thine eyes." but now lie looks back in surprise at bis want of faith. And he can close the psalm with a joyful exhortation to all God's people to deeper faith and higher courage and truer love. "O love the Lord, all ye His saints. The Lord preserveth the faithful. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all ye that hope in the Lord." This is the note that faith ends on. It sees enough to know the need and the reason for waiting. When faith weakens a man can say, "I am cast out of Thy sight." But when faith regains her hold ho knows that it was in a moment cf faiut-heartedness, in haste, in his wild, hurrying heart he said it, when patience had broken down, and he had ceased to wait upon God. So long as faith holds, courage-; holds. The great inspiring spiritual lesson:*of the whole psalm is the lesson of 'self-surrender into the hand of God. This was made possible and easy to the psalmist because his experience in the. dark hour had taught him something, had glyjen him new insight. "He hath shewed too: His marvellous loving kind-}-i •■ - & '"' .' }*■■.}-. ~ - • ;J 'The? Awakening of the Soul, We feel sometimes as if these psalms did} not quite fit our case. They are too clamant, with too strident ; a note, and their .; pictures aro too lurid. .; We can hardly apply the}:exact situation to onreeiyes,. It, is true that many a time we v can'-' say. "Have ;' mercy, for I am in -' trouble. ; " Sooner-or. later,*: it is true, grief comes to us, and seldom -can a life pass - "without somewhere the sting of pain. In times |Of conviction and repentance and awakening of soul we ; can even sav, "My strength faileth '= because of mine ih"quity, r ' but?we can hardly make the whole picture . our own, It may he that our lot' has been -"'cast in^pleasanter places, as we certainly ■ spend.our ; days ,in more peaceful scenes, to that; the music is too constantly -in a minor ker. But yet the difference is only in degree, and we can surely enter with" sympathy into the case of this man of '-,- God, speaking for himself or.for lis country, or for both;;and?we can learn the lesson of his faith. ■", -.One,thing'.'we learn, which helps our partial explanation, of s the, great mystery of pain and sorrow/ is - that through* these there can come a new insight into life and* into the purpose of God. It was through hie sad experience that; the psalmist had been _.shown much that formerly he had! not completely realised.; Sorrow rightly used does give insight,- 'not only, inflight •in to ■ itself, but -, insight : into other . things, into;. life aridtreligion.:' There are depths which are disclosed only to those who have ..-' paid the price. . All; others are : mere : outriders till . they have been initiated into i hat region of deeper" ' knowledge and deeper feeling. ' -- •-.:•.— • The Value of Pain and Disappointment. The insight that" comes , through pain and disappointment may be insight into the value of 'rwhafc we have. 3 We learn to see not ; merely-; the? many compensations, but V '?1 6 9: to see the great good in present blessings. It is often the nappy and prosperous ; - man who- talks'loudly and largely over the misery of others, and makes large' judg- ' . ments oa the injustice of - the world and 1 ion the}; mystery of suffering. The man J , who, like :; the psalmist, •'■ has tasied for himself , the bitter cup, has often been' .'":' shown something which he thinks even worth the price. '■ The outsider's partial observatkm-leaJi 3c> many a shallow joudgmeht, whereas - the man who has himself been through the experience can see some;thing which makes him even• thankful that he now knows. It may,-; be merely a sort of joy-in \ the} straggle, a recognition that he has been' counted worth some discipline, :- ;\a,' joy id knowing: that strength is being added to character" through the strain. "„%Vlt may be a new joy in what is left, ;;.} lining.; how precious -some; unregarded ' things really are. Wo often do -not value things until we have tasted the "dread of losing them. We accept health and peace, -and tore; and service as,a matter of course, and -for - the first time we learn - how ■ precious } are T these gifts when they seem taken* from ;, us..-' What ■ j revelations ;; have ; come to men. at sickbeds and deathbeds'/ They never really saw what the best things in life are until then. ; In a flash of recognitionthey were shown some of the' depths of life, the pathos and mystery , and -tragedy, and if love has. been given back to them from the. brink of the graved they know ever after-how good it wai that they should have looked into the pit. Some answers} are received to many a . question when suffering has '. been the schoolmaster. The world has been richer to a man ever since. Sorrow has brought out truth as the night brings oat stars. . This may seem merely that we become content with less, , that because the sun * has ceased to shine we are grateful that the gloom of night should he enlightened by any star.' Even that is worth something—to learn true contentment. "Bat there is more in it than this, more than just cutting our coat according to bur cloth, and becoming more easily satisfied. Ji here is a new and real value given to things which before were unregarded. This illuminating power of sorrow has chiefly .to ~d . ° with the fundamental basis of life, getting deeper to the tree sources of life, and all who have gone through this school can add their own illustration to the fact. his psalmists experience might seem a wud tale of imagination, a dramatic S ' n ?l \Z the „ raan who has never been is kno» n to the man who also has been, shown something. Luther said that he m i?°£ r d i erstai,d - maTl y oi *• psalm! till he had been afflicted. Intellectual appreciation « me with spiritual SS and the spiritual insight. was partly the fruit of sympathy bom of a similar ex penence. Rutherford declared that.' had' found A new ?5 through the furnace He had had the Bible before, but it be oauie preoous to him i n a new way. For fright!" 5 ' the SCnse ° f need *s The Marvel of God's Irving Kindness. - , Bat. above &] k it >« insight into God's love and will , which the psalmist received messed he the Lord," he could say, "foi He hath showed me His marvellous loving kindness in a strong city." He had tasted of sorrow, and for that lie cquld be grate ful, for it had beets the occasion, of hii S tasting of love. We hold things as com - monplacc. knowing them only on the out '' i 5^ 0 ' until our eyes are sharpened to see -' "'£% not see iiie marvel of God's lovinj kindness, and perhaps take it as a mattei oi course. So it often needs a sharp lessor .:, to drive us deep. Wo need to be blinder - w "li seeing tears until we see. We neec «L, Eh r n, ' a ? d how are we to b. -iwjin unless We learn by experience? W< ■>»« that tha men of insight are alwav '-".':"'"' -"' li 'i have themselves gradual •• ."J -}- "001. The fruitful live! are tb deej. "■-> which the ploughshare has cu ;!SS|isllllSl'-}, ; ;v ':f& '-fi, '.' "■, - .... . _ .-. r.