Bible Commentaries
Philippians 4

Verse 4

Christian Joy

Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice.— Php_4:4 .

1. It has been well said that this whole Epistle may be summed up in two short sentences: “I rejoice”; “Rejoice ye!” The word and the thing crop up in every chapter, like some hidden brook, ever and anon sparkling out into the sunshine from beneath the shadows. This continual refrain of gladness is all the more remarkable if we remember the Apostle’s circumstances. The letter shows him to us as a prisoner, dependent on Christian charity for a living, having no man like-minded to cheer his solitude; uncertain as to how it shall be with him, and obliged to contemplate the possibility of being offered, or poured out as a libation, on the sacrifice and service of his faith. Yet out of all the darkness his clear notes ring jubilant; and this sunny Epistle comes from the pen of a prisoner who did not know but that tomorrow he might be a martyr.

2. This is not the enervating speech of the lotus-land; it is a bracing exhortation ringing through the stifling air of difficulty and strife. Age is not frequently associated with such sunny exuberance of spirit. Its song is apt to “crack,” its lights burn dim, its disposition becomes despondent. Age is so prone to become reminiscent, and memory is a fertile breeding-ground of dark and tearful regrets. Age fondly dwells on “radiant morns” which have “passed away”; it turns its eyes away from the east whence new mornings break. And so the psalm changes into a threnody, and minor tunes pervade the evening hymn. But here is an old man in whose vespers the minor note finds no place. Hard circumstances have not made him hard. Apparent failure has not soured him into a cynic. He retains his fine, appreciative sense of life’s essential sweetness. He has not become moodily reminiscent of past glories and of vanished feasts. He feels the days before him. The pains of to-day are only the birth-pangs of a better to-morrow. The immediate difficulty is only a prickly burr which contains most toothsome fruit. Rome may separate the Apostle from his fellows, she is powerless to separate him from his Lord. Imprisonment still provides a room for two, and by no earthly conspiracy can he be bereft of his great Companion. The Lord is with him, and so the prison is ablaze with light. Old age glows with sunny optimism. The psalm of adoration rises night and day. And the captive sends forth to his fellow believers the invigorating counsel, “Rejoice in the Lord alway.”

3. This is the Apostle’s farewell. When a Roman wished to say “Good-bye,” he said, “Be well,” “Be strong.” When a Greek would say it, he said, “Be happy.” And it is in this simplest sense first that St. Paul says “Rejoice.” It is one, nearly the last, of the farewells which he essays again and again in this Epistle to his beloved Philippian Church. But just as we might dwell on our own formula of leave-taking, delighting to feel that in saying “Good-bye” we were saying the best and truest of prayers for those from whom we parted—if indeed it means “God be with you!”—so St. Paul dwells on the formula and puts its full meaning into it, “Be happy”; yes, not only in the formal, idiomatic, complimentary sense, but in very truth. “Be happy, be happy always in the Lord.” It is a wish, but it is more than a wish; it is an exhortation.

Bishop Hacket chose as his motto, “Serve God, and be cheerful.” Golden words these. I do not know how it may be with you; but the remembrance of these words has often lifted me up from the pit, and dissipated the cloud of gloom. Yes, learn to connect with the direct service of God this obligation of cheerfulness—cheerfulness having its springs in Christian joy, cheerfulness flushing and refreshing the heart, cheerfulness overflowing in deeds and thoughts of kindliness towards others, and of thankfulness towards God. 1 [Note: J. B. Lightfoot, Ordination Addresses, 314.]

The worst thing Carlyle did was his incessant barking at mankind, and it was an ill legacy to leave to us. It damaged all the rest of his work, made it less effective than it would otherwise have been. It pressed despair into the heart of man, and though he pressed duty also into our hearts, the sense of duty he impressed was weakened by the sense of despair he encouraged. Had his statement been true, I should not complain. Let us have the truth by all means, however unpleasant it may seem. But his abuse was not true. Men are not “mostly fools.” All work is not ill done. Cheating does not cover all business, nor gabble all speech, nor is the great river of things running in darkness. Whoever would get the good out of Carlyle, let him put apart all this side of him as one of the untrue things he himself denounced so heartily. The voice of the true Prophet speaks better things. He believes in God and therefore he believes in Man, God’s child. And his face should be bright, his voice clear, his eyes with a light of victory, in his right hand the sword and in his left the trumpet. The spirit of St. Paul should be in his heart, and the praise of St. Paul on his lips. 1 [Note: Stopford A. Brooke, The Kingship of Love, 117.]

Rejoice we are allied

To That which doth provide

And not partake, effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod;

Nearer we hold of God

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff

That turns earth’s smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three-parts pain!

Strive, and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

Yet gifts should prove their use:

I own the Past profuse

Of power each side, perfection every turn:

Eyes, ears took in their dole,

Brain treasured up the whole;

Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn?”

Not once beat “Praise be Thine!

I see the whole design,

I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:

Perfect I call Thy plan:

Thanks that I was a man!

Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!” 2 [Note: Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra.]

I

The Source of Christian Joy

1. The secret spring of Christian joy is union with Christ.—When we surrender self and lose ourselves in Christ, the fountains of joy are at once opened. Having yielded his heart utterly to Christ, man is at one with himself, and in this harmony begins a joy which this world can neither give nor take away.

To be “in Christ,” which is commended to us here as the basis of all true blessedness, means that the whole of our nature shall be occupied with, and fastened upon, Him; thought turning to Him, the tendrils of the heart clinging and creeping around Him, the will submitting itself in glad obedience to His beloved and supreme commandments, the aspirations, and desires feeling out after Him as the sufficient and eternal good, and all the current of our being setting towards Him in earnestness of desire, and resting in Him in tranquillity of possession. And, says St. Paul in the great words of the text, such a union, reciprocal and close, is the secret of all blessedness. If thus we are wedded to that Lord, and His life is in us and ours enclosed in Him, then there is such correspondence between our necessities and our supplies that there is no room for aching emptiness; no gnawing of unsatisfied longings, but the blessedness that comes from having found that which we seek, and in the finding being stimulated to a still closer, happier, and not restless search after fuller possession. The man that knows where to get anything and everything that he needs, and to whom desires are but the prophets of instantaneous fruition—surely that man has in his possession the talismanic secret of perpetual gladness. They who thus dwell in Christ by faith, love, obedience, imitation, aspiration, and enjoyment are like men housed in some strong fortress, who can look out over all the fields alive with enemies, and feel that they are safe. They who thus dwell in Christ gain command over themselves; and because they can bridle passions, and subdue hot and impossible desires, and keep themselves well in hand, have stanched one chief source of unrest and sadness, and have opened one pure and sparkling fountain of unfailing gladness.

What holy whispers would pass to and fro between the Father and us if, at every heart’s beat and at every pulse of breath, we could repeat our untiring hallelujah with them on high, who, again and again, at each pause, at each close of God’s unceasing display are ever saying, again and yet again, “Hallelujah.” Here is the secret of Christian cheerfulness; and no power on earth can break it down when once we have discovered that there is absolutely nothing but sin itself which is not fitted to renew and to replenish the delight of giving thanks. Why, then, are any Christian faces clouded and thick? Why are there any Christian hearts that are sullen and tired? Call upon your spirits to give thanks unto the Lord God. That door of escape is ever open, that gateway into gladness can never be shut; and, day after day, you can magnify the Lord, and worship His Name, ever world without end. “Lift up your hearts unto the Lord,” for indeed “it is meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks” to God for His great glory. 1 [Note: Canon H. Scott Holland, Helps to Faith and Practice, 121.]

It is interesting to note that the earliest representations of the face of Christ in art picture Him in the bloom of youth, suggestive of the eternal youth of the Word. Such representations are ideal in their nature, and are founded on classic forms, and they express the joyfulness of primitive Christianity as well as its radiant belief in the risen Christ. It was not until the fourth century that the representations of the Saviour became clouded over: sorrow, austerity, anguish taking the place of youthfulness and beauty, and Christ becoming the grief-stricken sufferer. 2 [Note: J. Burns, Illustrations from Art (1912), 24.]

(1) When we are divided between many conflicting interests, halting between two opinions, trying to serve two masters, distracted by the cares of many things, which enter in and choke the word, we cannot be really joyful. But when the whole current of our being sets in towards God, wiping out the minor ruffles and cross-currents of the stream; when we have no motive save to please our master Christ and do His will; when we are the gilded temples for His indwelling, the channels for His outworking, then our peace begins to flow as a river, and having peace with God, we rejoice in hope of His glory, and rejoice in tribulations also, and rejoice in God Himself through our Lord Jesus Christ.

When Haydn was once asked how it was that his church music was always so cheerful, the great composer made a most appropriate and beautiful reply: “I cannot,” said he, “make it otherwise; I write according to the thoughts I feel. When I think upon God my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen; and since God has given me a cheerful heart, it will be pardoned me that I serve Him with a cheerful spirit.” 1 [Note: W. J. Armitage, The Fruit of the Spirit, 22.]

Be very sure that it is right and good to appear cheerful as long as ever you can, and that it has nothing hypocritical in it. To aim at appearing cheerful would be wrong; not so to aim at being cheerful. And the only way to aim at being cheerful is to try to cheer others, to see the bright side, and to show one’s best. Just as we try to become good by doing painfully what we might perhaps do so easily if we were already good. And God does not leave us alone, so doing. Joy comes by giving joy, often when things look most unpromising for ourselves. 2 [Note: Life of William Edward Collins, Bishop of Gibraltar, 51.]

Let us never believe for a moment that God looks askance at human happiness. It is true that He has sanctified sorrow as a discipline and a preparation; but only that it may be “turned into joy.” “Sorrow may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.” The blessed Lord did not hesitate to take His part in the wedding feast. He noted with disapproval those who imagined that to be religious was to be “of a sad countenance.” His eye was attracted to the children playing in the market-place. Man of sorrows as He was, He “rejoiced in spirit,” and promised to His followers that they should be partakers of His joy. We are made for gladness, and shall not be able to fulfil our destiny until we know how to be glad. 3 [Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 188.]

(2) Men find their truest joy not in the things they ask for, but in the things they surrender. The truly happy life at all its points of contact with the world does not ask for anything, it gives something. Happiness is founded, as far as all earth relations are concerned, not on what the world can do for us, but on what we become able to do for it. Happy are they who can take to their fellows the treasures of mercy and peace. Happy are they who can add something to the common stock of the world’s tenderness and quietness.

The secret of happiness is not found in selfishly seeking for it, as an end in life, any more than Prince de Leon found the fountain of perpetual youth by seeking it among the flowers of Florida. The Golden Rule of life will bring the golden reign of joy and happiness into the heart. Paul and Silas have more joy in the dungeon than those who confined them there. Jeremy Taylor, while in the hands of thieves, had welling up in his heart a joy that surmounted all adverse conditions. Says he, “They have left me the sun and moon; fire and water; a loving wife and many friends to pity me and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse, and they have not taken away my merry countenance and my cheerful spirit and the good conscience; and he that hath so many causes of joy and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures and chooses to sit down on his little handful of thorns.” Looking out upon the beauties of nature, recognizing the necessities of life that were supplied him, the love of wife and friends, the privilege of discourse, he was happy in the thought that his merry countenance could not be taken away, for without were still so many pleasantries and within a cheerful spirit and a good conscience. He found the secret of happiness in the peculiar sense of victory over the untoward conditions of life. To how many has this thought given courage and renewed length of happy days! 1 [Note: C. F. Ireland.]

Joy is a most contagious, catching thing. But of all joys, joy in the midst of trouble. Nothing more wins men to the Gospel of Christ than the witness of a bright life; and that witness we have all of us within our power to bear. Nothing persuades the world of the reality of religion more than the deep rest it brings to the believing heart. A mind at perfect peace—that is the mystery of Christian living, that is the secret of communion with God. But this strange, inward power is most clearly perceived in the midst of distress. Men cannot fathom it; human nature cannot furnish it. It is no worldly stoicism crushing down the natural impulses of the heart. It is a Divine thing to “glory in tribulations”; to feel the power of Christ resting upon you, raising you above yourself, turning your very weakness to strength. 2 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 49.]

2. This joy is fed by belief in the steadfast love of Christ.—Man’s soul is not only discordant but vacant. It cries out for emotion. The fulness of emotion is its life. Now that vacancy is the death of joy, and it sends men on that perpetual chase after happiness, which we see so much of in the world. Hence the life-cry of most men is, “Give, give”; for the human soul, unsatisfied with the world, unsatisfied had it possession of the starry universe, yearns for that fulness of emotion which is given only by the love of God. Hence it is that you so often find the young heart, while yet undegraded in its first fresh feelings, willing and even wishing to die in its youth. For what means that sentimentalism which so many young souls feel—viz., that to die young is youth’s divinest gift—but this, that they are becoming conscious of that hollowness and vacancy in the heart which no mere human emotion can fill? Or to see this in its crisis, look at the unbeliever. The man who has lost his early faith in Christianity will often tell you in unutterable sadness, “I have looked upwards, and backwards, and beyond, and I find nothing in life but the shadow of that vanity and vexation which fill my own soul.” For there is no sorrow so intense as that which enters a man when he is tempted to believe that there is no Christ. The hollowness of the heart is awfully realized then. But belief in the love of Christ gives this fulness of emotion. It is the perception of that love in all its grandeur, caring for us in every personal sorrow, sympathizing with us in every individual experience, that fills the heart’s vacancy, and at once creates joy.

There is one thing which Christ’s followers can do, and that is to keep themselves in the delightful atmosphere of His love. It is our fault and our shame if we spend so many days in the chilling fogs or under the heavy clouds of unbelief, or in the contaminating atmosphere of conformity to the world. “Is it always foggy here on the banks of Newfoundland?” inquired a passenger of an old Cunard captain. “How should I know, madam? I don’t live here.” 1 [Note: T. L. Cuyler.]

Joy. What is joy? Love awake and alive, fully conscious of herself. If love be the heart’s first beat, joy is its counter beat. If love be the outflow of the heart, joy is the inflow, the flowing back of the loving heart. The rise of temperature which love brings, the heightened being, the effervescence—that is joy. 2 [Note: R. W. Barbour, Thoughts, 2.]

’Twixt gleams of joy and clouds of doubt

Our feelings come and go;

Our best estate is tossed about

In ceaseless ebb and flow.

No mood of feeling, form of thought,

Is constant for a day;

But Thou, O Lord, Thou changest not:

The same Thou art alway.

I grasp Thy strength, make it mine own,

My heart with peace is blest;

I lose my hold, and then come down

Darkness and cold unrest.

Let me no more my comfort draw

From my frail hold of Thee;

In this alone rejoice with awe,

Thy mighty grasp of me.

Out of that weak, unquiet drift

That comes but to depart,

To that pure Heaven my spirit lift

Where Thou unchanging art.

Lay hold of me with Thy strong grasp,

Let Thine Almighty arm

In its embrace my weakness clasp,

And I shall fear no harm.

The purpose of eternal good

Let me but surely know;

On this I’ll lean, let changing mood

And feeling come or go;

Glad when Thy sunshine fills my soul;

Not lorn when clouds o’ercast;

Since Thou within the sure control

Of love dost hold me fast. 1 [Note: J. C. Shairp.]

3. This joy is independent of circumstances.—Real joy must be independent of outward changes. The longing to attain a state of life superior to the accidents of time and change shows this. The wisest men have spoken of following the right in the face of all consequences as the source of the highest and purest joy of man. The fellowship of Christ’s joy gives this. It is a joy undisturbed by sorrow; it may seem to be weakened, but it is in reality strengthened, by suffering. So those men found it to whom Christ said that their joy should be full. They never fully understood what He meant until they suffered. Peter came to feel it, not when looking into the silent depths of the Sea of Galilee in the calm evening, and remembering Him who once walked there, but when made a “partaker of the sufferings of Christ.” It was not when rising to some lofty region of thought, wherein his “fiery pulse beat fast” with the contemplation of the Everlasting, that Paul felt this deep blessedness, but when cast down, forsaken, always bearing about in his body the sufferings of Christ, and while glorying in infirmity, that he knew the “peace which passeth understanding.” So with the followers of the Saviour now. Changes, disappointments, battles, sufferings, only deepen the joy which springs from the utter surrender of self, and which finds its expression in the cry, “Thy will, O Father, be done.” And even death itself, which damps out the joy of all other men, consummates the blessedness of those who, through fellowship of life, are partakers of the joy of Christ.

Stevenson prescribed cheerfulness for books as well as for people: “As I live I feel more and more that literature should be cheerful and brave-spirited, even if it cannot be made beautiful and pious and heroic. The Bible, in most parts, is a cheerful book; it is our little piping theologies, tracts, and sermons that are dull and dowie.” And all this was not the easy outflow of health and animal spirits, bidding other people be gay because the mantle of gaiety clung without effort to his own shoulders. It was the sturdy creed of a harassed, suffering invalid, with death constantly at his elbow; a body hampered and restricted, denied what it most coveted, kept in a subjection that at moments bent the spirit but never broke it. No one ever had more obstacles between him and his ideal, or brought a more unfaltering courage to surmount them, or could say with a greater sincerity, “sick or well, I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret very little.” 1 [Note: J. A. Hammerton, Stevensoniana, 223.]

Paul “rejoiced in his bonds” in Christ Jesus, because, being chained to a soldier, he was enabled to speak the gospel message to that soldier; and, having a new guard chained to him every day, he was enabled in the course of due time to speak in turn to the whole of the Praetorian Guard. What a blessed triumph it is, when a man rejoices in fetters, thanks God for his bonds! The very clanking of the chains of the Apostle Paul had a voice for his Master! When Dober, the Moravian missionary, first went down to St. Thomas to labour for the blacks, and was told that he could never get a chance to reach and teach the slaves there because he was not a slave himself, he said, “We will sell ourselves into slavery and work by their side.” Dober rejoiced in bonds for Christ Jesus if those fetters could be the means of telling the gospel story. Paul and Silas rejoiced in the stocks if the stocks could be the means of a wider preaching of the gospel; and Paul writes that his own imprisonment, and his own boldness in preaching Christ notwithstanding his imprisonment, became the means of inspiring courage and confidence in more timid souls, so that many other brethren were waxing bold and confident to speak the Word of God in the face of opposition. 1 [Note: A. T. Pierson, The Heights of the Gospel, 204.]

I do not believe there lives on God’s earth a man who has lived through more sorrow, shame, toil, danger, drags and insult than I have. This I know, whatever tries other men, everything that had deadly power to try me came. For fifteen years, from thirty-three to forty-eight or fifty, I never knew real health, and had to work on in pain and weakness day by day. For thirty years the only thing I ever really longed for was bed. It sounds mean, I dare say it is mean, but it is true, and I wish to tell you the truth; whatever joy or sorrow came, the overwhelming sense of weariness and endless pain made bed, forgetfulness, the only human solace that satisfied. It is only in the last three years that I have begun to joy again in my waking life. Yet, strange contradiction to all this, I count myself blessed to have been allowed to live such a life. I felt the warrior joy of life and the conqueror’s joy of getting the mastery. In my worst agony I could not pray to have it taken away, so utterly, by degrees, did I feel the power and light that came. And now all creation has opened out to me by living, and everything that I count happy I know to have come out of the self-mastery and training and truth which those years of anguish brought. My positive creed is an absolute unfaltering certainty of life triumphant. 2 [Note: Edward Thring, Head Master of Uppingham.]

Joy and blithe serenity which received death with no alarm or self-abasement were the marked characteristics of the early Christians. St. Luke throws a flood of light on the tone of their society—“drunken, but not with wine”; intoxicated, so to speak, with the rushing influences of Pentecost—when he says that “they did take their food with exultation and singleness of heart.” The words indicate their bounding gladness, their simplicity and smoothness of feeling, as of a plain without stones, or a field without furrows. 1 [Note: Dean Farrar.]

Speak to me, heart of mine, old and weary of years,

Labour and loss have been thine, pains and terrors and tears;

Why art thou now so light, making my tired feet

Forget the steps of their pilgrimage and spring as if life were sweet?

Why? Because life is sweet. Thy secret I know, I know,

By the stream in the beautiful street the trees of gladness grow,

And under their fruitful boughs I see one Angel stand,

So close, so close, that I sometimes think he lays a hand in my hand.

Red Love still rules the day, white Faith enfolds the night,

And Hope, green-mantled, leads the way by the walls of the City of Light.

Therefore I walk as one who sees the joy shine through

Of the Other Life behind our life, like the stars behind the blue.

II

The Continuity of Christian Joy

It is one of the most important features in Christian joy, that it is not of man, and that it cannot be undone. Sometimes it may be brighter and more glowing than at other times, and by contrast we will occasionally feel that there is very little of it stirring our hearts and beautifying our lives; yet we are distinctly taught that, however faint and weak the gift that is in us may appear, if we only “stir it up,” as the Apostle directs, we shall again go on our way rejoicing. Let us remember, then, that this spiritual joy continues for ever in the heart of him who has given himself to God, as it is God’s gift and in its nature eternal. If it be ours, no one can deprive us of it, for He has attached His promise to it—“Your joy no man taketh from you.”

We sometimes speak as if the joy peculiar to childhood were but a dream, as though the best thing a man can do is to associate with children in order to catch by reflection a fleeting ray of the sunshine which once rested on his own childhood. We sometimes speak as if the young man’s joy, the sense of life, of boundless hope, of a widening horizon, must die out of heart and soul as a mere illusion. We speak as if the mature man’s joy, the relish for work, the rejoicing activity can last only a certain time, that the joy of our work must cease with the newness of it. But do you not know that it is Christ’s function to keep open the springs of life within us with the special joys which belong to each period of it? To be children always with the hearts of children, that is the privilege He bestows on those to whom He gives a place in the household of God. We cannot be children when we pass from the care and home of our earthly father. But we never pass from the care and home of our Heavenly Father. We need not cease to be gay, to be free from care. Nay, we should not cease to be so. To look hopefully forward, to lean trustfully back, that is the attitude of children. Children do not question. No, I am wrong; they do question, but it is things they question. They never question love. They never question the power and wisdom of a parent. Their gladsomeness would go at once, the sunshine of their life would pass into shadow at once if they did. If we could renew our childhood we should be glad, and the command to rejoice always is simply a command to renew our childhood. God wants us to remove the stones and earth from this clearest, brightest spring of water, that it may bubble up afresh. To receive the Kingdom of Heaven as little children; to walk and live in the Kingdom of Heaven as little children; that is the secret of perpetual joy. 1 [Note: J. F. Ewing, Unsearchable Riches of Christ, 120.]

Napoleon, when sent to Elba, adopted, in proud defiance of his fate, the motto, “ Ubicunque felix.” It was not true in his case; but the Christian may be truly “happy everywhere” and always. 2 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]

III

The Duty of Rejoicing

The joy of the Lord is a duty. It is so because it is the natural effect of faith, because we can do much to regulate our emotions directly, and much more to determine them by determining what set of thoughts shall engage us. A wise and strong faith is our duty. To keep our emotional nature well under control of reason and will is our duty. To lose thoughts of ourselves in God’s truth about Himself is our duty. If we do these things, we cannot fail to have Christ’s joy remaining in us, and making ours full. This is a truth which we have great need to lay to heart. It is of no great consequence that we should practically confute the impotent old sneer about religion as being a gloomy thing. One does not need to mind much what some people say on that matter. The world would call “the joy of the Lord “gloom, just as much as it calls “godly sorrow” gloom. But we are losing for ourselves a power and an energy of which we have no conception, unless we feel that joy is a duty, and that not to be joyful is more than a misfortune, it is a fault.

There is always a sunny side to the house of our life—a chamber where brightness is, and the door of this chamber is never locked against us, though it sometimes requires some art and patience to open the door. And it is because joy is a possibility that it becomes more than a possibility, viz., a duty. We do our best work when we are joyous; we ought to be joyous that we may do our best work. And when we are inclined on our own account to be grave and gloomy, let us strive to be joyous on Christ’s account, and on account of others. We cannot dispel the world’s shadows unless there is some sunshine in our own hearts. We cannot heal and cheer and strengthen the men and women around us unless there is some joy in our face and soul.

It had been well for Ruskin’s health if he could have husbanded all his gradually recovered strength for the studies which brought him peace of mind. His friends, as he says in “Fors,” often counselled him to avoid controversial and painful subjects. Cardinal Manning, for one, had written to him: “Joy is one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost. There is before you and about you a world of beauty, sweetness, stillness, peace, and light. You have only to open your whole soul to it.” But his eager spirit made such peaceful preoccupation and such economy of power impossible to him. 1 [Note: E. T. Cook, The Life of Ruskin, ii. 435.]

“Joy is a duty”—so with golden lore

The Hebrew Rabbis taught in days of yore.

And happy human hearts heard in their speech

Almost the highest wisdom man can reach.

But one bright peak still rises far above,

And there the Master stands whose name is Love,

Saying to those whom heavy tasks employ,

“ Life is divine when duty is a joy.” 1 [Note: H. van Dyke.]

1. Joy is strength.—All gladness has something to do with efficiency; for it is the prerogative of man that his force comes from his mind, and not from his body. The old song about a sad heart tiring in a mile is as true in regard to the gospel, and the works of Christian people, as in any other case. If we have hearts full of light, and souls at rest in Christ, and the rest and blessedness of a tranquil gladness lying there and filling our being, work will be easy, endurance will be easy, sorrow will be bearable, and trials will not be so very hard.

Just as joy in ourselves for the time being softens, elevates and purifies, so the influence we exercise on others while we are joyous is more or less strong in helping them to be good instead of evil, soft and kind instead of harsh and cruel. The cheerful master makes gentle, willing and happy servants. The cheerful mate makes work pleasant and keeps off strife. The cheerful husband lightens the burdens of his wife’s cares, and thus soothes her temper. The cheerful father makes it easier for his children to obey him, helps them over their moments of ill-temper and discontent, and by joy alone dispels many a gathering storm of anger and strife. The cheerful teacher keeps better order in his class than a surly one, and the cheerful boy is ever so much more teachable and tractable than a sulky one. A morbid, melancholy and discontented person makes it tenfold more difficult to discharge our duties towards him. To say nothing of the elements of domestic discord which are involved in depression of spirits, it leads imperceptibly to estrangement and consequent neglect.

Anyone can rejoice “when there’s nothing whatever to grumble at”—though some people often fail to do so, even then—but, as Mark Tapley would say, there’s “some credit in being jolly” when everything goes wrong. What a pleasure it is to see anyone with a beaming smile, even though we know that the face wearing it often looks gloomy or cross! But, when the joyous look may be depended on, the effect is magical. Happy people are like sunshine, cheering up everybody around them. When we meet one of these glad souls, we find our smiles rising to match theirs, and we go on our way feeling cheered and helped.… We have no right to add to the sorrows of the world by being gloomy or discontented. We all create a certain soul-atmosphere. Let us see to it that the atmosphere we are creating every day may help others to thank God and take courage. We can all walk in the glad consciousness of sins forgiven and in the radiance of God’s wonderful Love. Though it is true enough that anyone may, by determined effort, acquire the valuable habit of cheerfulness, I think those who are glad at heart—like a merry child—without special effort, help and cheer their comrades far more. Happiness is very infectious. I used to keep a photograph of a laughing baby on the mantelpiece, because I could not help smiling when I looked at it—and it is impossible to smile, all to one’s self, and cherish melancholy thoughts at the same time. Light must always banish darkness when they are brought together. 1 [Note: Dora Farncomb, The Vision of His Face, 156.]

During the South African war, we were told of the scion of a noble house, who had escaped from captivity at Pretoria, being able to live for four days on some sticks of chocolate, because he had begun to taste the inexpressible joy of liberty. What cannot men do when their hearts are glad and free? Joy gives wings to the feet, sinews to the legs, muscles to the arms, elasticity to every motion. 2 [Note: F. B. Meyer, The Soul’s Pure Intention, 83.]

2. Joy garrisons the soul against temptations.—The evil one is foiled by song as much as by prayer, and perhaps more. As the microbes of disease cannot exist in the sunlight, neither can temptation succeed against a joyous, singing heart. Song is an antiseptic environment—a bank of sunbeams—which is utterly impregnable to all the assaults of the adversary.

The first thing that led me to seek the secret of God was the exuberant joy which I discerned beaming forth from the noble nature of a young man who had recently yielded himself entirely to God. What he said was probably not remarkable. At least, it has long ago faded from my mind. But I said to myself, “Here is one who is happy in his religious life—not condemned for the past, not conscious of a cloud between himself and God, not dreading the future. His religion is a light on his inner heart, and the glow of it is on his face.” To see it was to hunger for it, and to desire it was to obtain. Yes, there is a spring that rises in the soul, and flows over in musical ripples on the face and in the speech, which is infinitely attractive to those who have just religion enough to make them miserable. If only we were happy in our religious life, with the sparkle, the light, the song that Christ gives, many would come around to ask for our secret, whose joy has been like the brief crackling of thorns under a pot. 1 [Note: F. B. Meyer, The Soul’s Pure Intention, 84.]

We should be as happy as possible, and our happiness should last as long as possible; for those who can finally issue from self by the portal of happiness know infinitely wider freedom than those who pass through the gate of sadness. The joy of the Lord, the joy that is strength, the joy that no man taketh from us, the joy wherewith we joy before God, the abundant joy of faith and hope, and love and praise, this it is that gathers like a radiant, fostering, cheering air around the soul that yields itself to the grace of God, to do His holy, loving will. 2 [Note: Bishop Francis Paget.]

Am I wrong to be always so happy? This world is full of grief;

Yet there is laughter of sunshine, to see the crisp green on the leaf,

Daylight is ringing with song-birds, and brooklets are crooning by night;

And why should I make a shadow where God makes all so bright?

Earth may be wicked and weary, yet cannot I help being glad!

There is sunshine without and within me, and how should I mope or be sad?

God would not flood me with blessings, meaning me only to pine

Amid all the bounties and beauties He pours upon me and mine;

Therefore will I be grateful, and therefore will I rejoice;

My heart is singing within me; sing on, O heart and voice. 3 [Note: Walter C. Smith, Hilda Among the Broken Gods.]

Christian Joy

Literature

Armitage (W. J.), The Fruit of the Spirit, 21.

Barry (A.), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey, 313.

Bright (W.), Morality and Doctrine, 179.

Brooke (S. A.), The Kingship of Love, 114.

Burrell (D. J.), The Gospel of Gladness, 5.

Ewing (J. F.), The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, 113.

Goodman (H. H.), The Lordship of Christ, 73.

Hunt (A. N.), Sermons for the Christian Year, i. 24.

Jowett (J. H.), The High Calling, 169.

Krause (W. H.), Sermons, iii. 13.

Kuegele (F.), Country Sermons, ii. 29.

Liddon (H. P.), Advent in St. Paul’s, 207.

Lightfoot (J. B.), Ordination Addresses, 309.

Maclaren (A.), Creed and Conduct, 83.

Manning (H. E.), Sermons, iii. 240.

Martin (S.), Fifty Sermons, No. 10.

Meyer (F. B.), The Soul’s Pure Intention, 77.

Murphy (J. B. C), The Journey of the Soul, 21.

Noble (F. A.), Discourses on Philippians, 277.

Pierson (A. T.), The Heights of the Gospel, 199.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons, ii. 37.

Watkinson (W. L.), The Education of the Heart, 80.

Wilmot-Buxton (H. J.), The Life of Duty, i. 24.

Christian Age, liii. 18 (Cuyler).

Church of England Pulpit, xxxvi. 145 (Ganby); xlix. 7 (Jones).

Churchman’s Pulpit: Fourth Sunday in Advent, ii. 38 (Cotton); The Old and New Year, ii. 490.

Contemporary Pulpit, 2nd Ser., iii. 231 (Wickham).

Literary Churchman, xxi. (1875) 515.

Preacher’s Magazine, ii. (1891) 31 (Harper).

Verse 6

The Antidote to Anxiety

In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.— Php_4:6 .

1. Who was he who here said to the Church at Philippi, “In nothing be anxious”? A prisoner in a Roman prison; and when Rome fixed its claws it did not usually let go without drawing blood. He was expecting his trial, which would probably end in death. Everything in the future was absolutely dark and uncertain. It was this man, with all the pressure of personal sorrows weighing upon him, who, in the very crisis of his life, turned to his brethren in Philippi, who had far fewer causes of anxiety than he had, and cheerfully bade them, “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Had not that bird learned to sing when his cage was darkened?

We are like men that live in a narrow alley in some city, with great buildings on either side towering high about their heads, and only a strip of sky visible. If we see up in that strip a cloud, we complain and behave as if the whole heavens, right away round the three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon, were black with tempest. But we see only a strip, and there is a great deal of blue in the sky; however, there may be a cloud in the patch that we see above our heads from the alley where we live. Everything, rightly understood, that God sends to men is a cause of thanksgiving; therefore,” in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” 1 [Note: A. Maclaren, Leaves from the Tree of Life, 284.]

2. This is a double precept or exhortation—it forbids us to indulge in a certain habit which is evil and pernicious, and then it enjoins upon us a certain other habit, which is not only good in itself, but is also the effectual cure of the former evil one.

I

A Prohibition

“In nothing be anxious.”

“In nothing be anxious.” How exacting is the ideal! Harassing care is to play no part in the believer’s life. Worry is an alloy which always debases the fine metal of the Christian character. It mars and spoils it. And so the counsel is unconditional, and covers every period and sphere in human life. Anxiety is to be banished from everything. It is not to be permitted the smallest foothold in the Kingdom of our Lord.

The root idea of the Greek word which is here translated “anxious” is a divided mind. The mind is looking two ways, is vibrating between two attractions; and it has found no place as yet where it can settle down and be at rest. Hence the sense of weariness caused by anxiety. The root idea of the English word “anxious,” like that of “anger,” is choking. It is obstruction, distress, pain, carried over from the bodily conception of it into the sphere of the mind. Under the pressure of this anxiety one becomes apprehensive, solicitous, confused; and every cloud becomes a darker cloud, and every weight becomes a heavier weight, and every outlook more ominous and dreadful. To yield to anxiety is to turn evil conjurer and play all kinds of alarming tricks on one’s own heart. It is to be a prophet of night rather than sunshine, of tears rather than songs.

The text does not mean that we are not to be industrious and economical and prudent and forethoughtful. Rational exertion to gain suitable ends is not denied to one, but urged and encouraged. The man who quotes, “In nothing be anxious,” in justification of laziness, or a supine folding of the hands in presence of services to be rendered and duties to be done, must not forget that the author of these words is likewise author of the words “diligent in business.” Neither the indifference of the fatalist nor that of the sensualist has any warrant in the Word of God. “If any will not work neither let him eat.” But the thing which is condemned, and which ought to be condemned, and from which the great Apostle and our Lord before him sought to deliver us, is the over-solicitude which burdens and benumbs the heart, and saps energy from brain and hand, and makes men forget that God is over them, and will provide for all the exigencies of their lives.

The word “careful,” used in the Authorized Version, “Be careful for nothing,” has somewhat changed its meaning since that translation was made over three hundred years ago. We use the word to describe that wise prudence and thoughtfulness which is the plain duty of man, a being possessed of a reasonable soul “looking before and after.” But originally “careful” had a different meaning. It meant to be burdened and fretted with care. It had much the same meaning as we express now by the word “careworn.” 1 [Note: J. C. Lambert, The Omnipotent Cross, 142.]

1. The prevalence of anxiety.—There can be little doubt that we belong to an anxious and careworn generation. Never was the world so rich in material things, never did it possess so many mechanical appliances for lightening human tasks and toils. But as the world grows richer, it seems to grow more and more anxious. And while steam and electricity, and all that extraordinary development of machinery and locomotion and means of communication to which they have led, have multiplied our powers enormously, they seem also to have multiplied our cares. They increase the speed at which we have to move, the high pressure at which we have to live, the dangerous complexity of the social organism of which we form a part. It reminds one of the old tale of Frankenstein’s monster. Doctor Frankenstein, through his wonderful knowledge of chemistry and biology, was able to put together the figure of a monstrous man, and to galvanize it into life. And then this dreadful creature of which he was the author became the haunting terror of his own life, almost driving him mad by its tyranny, and at last tragically cutting short his days. And sometimes it almost appears as if the tremendous powers of nature which man has summoned to his aid, and infused into the great fabric of modern civilization which he has gradually built up, were threatening to become our masters and our tyrants, instead of our willing servants. Certain it is that life is not so plain and simple as it used to be. The burdens of existence and duty seem to grow heavier and heavier; and at the same time the men and women of to-day seem to be getting more nervous and highly strung than those of other generations, and less able to bear their burdens calmly and silently and patiently. Thus, on every hand, we are told that nervousness and worry are amongst the chief banes of modern life; and that it is worry, and not work, that wears out so many people before their time.

The things that never happen are often as much realities to us in their effects as those that are accomplished. 1 [Note: Charles Dickens.]

The heart which boldly faces death

Upon the battle-field, and dares

Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath

The needle-points of frets and cares.

The stoutest spirits they dismay—

The tiny stings of every day.

And even saints of holy fame,

Whose souls by faith have overcome,

Who wore amid the cruel flame

The molten crown of martyrdom,

Bore not without complaint alway

The petty pains of every day.

Ah! more than martyr’s aureole,

And more than hero’s heart of fire,

We need the humble strength of soul

Which daily toils and ills require.

Sweet Patience, grant us, if you may,

An added grace for every day.

2. The folly of anxiety.—It accomplishes nothing and it weakens us and wears us out.

(1) It accomplishes nothing.—There would be some justification for anxiety were there any good in it, but there is not. Nothing is accomplished by it. The train does not arrive a single minute earlier because one goes to the station an hour before it is due; and the long waiting is only tenfold longer and more dreary if we fancy that our expected friend is surely sick or that some accident has occurred. If there is an encouraging word to be spoken, or a helpful deed to be done, let us speak or do; but to sit still, and paint pictures of disaster, and forecast ruin to friends and enterprises, does not help forward anything.

I have learned, as days have passed me,

Fretting never lifts the load;

And that worry, much or little,

Never smooths an irksome road;

For you know that somehow, always,

Doors are opened, ways are made;

When we work and live in patience

Under all the cross that’s laid.

He who waters meadow lilies

With the dew from out the sky,

He who feeds the flitting sparrows,

When in need for food they cry,

Never fails to help His children

In all things, both great and small;

For His ear is ever open

To our faintest far-off call.

(2) It weakens and wears one out.—Charles Kingsley well says: “Do to-day’s duty, fight to-day’s temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.” Under a habit of anxiety the body loses its vigour, the mind loses its tone, the will loses its force, and the heart loses its resiliency and sweetness. The innocent old farmer who wound up his alarm clock and fixed it to go off at six in the morning, and then sat up all night so as to be sure to hear it when it struck, but who was so exhausted by his tedious vigil that when the morning came he could not start on his projected journey, is a fair illustration of the mischief done to one by extreme anxiousness. Generals fight better; business men handle their business more successfully; teachers get more into and more out of their pupils; mothers conduct their households with greater ease and satisfaction, if they do not let any of their energies run to waste in anxiety.

Anxiety has no place in the life of one of God’s children. Christ’s serenity was one of the most unmistakable signs of His filial trust. He was tired and hungry and thirsty and in pain; but we cannot imagine Him anxious or fretful. His mind was kept in perfect peace because it was stayed on God. The life lived by the faith of the Son of God will find His word kept: “My peace I give unto you.” 1 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 7.]

I desire to submit myself entirely to the will of God, and moreover that He would sanctify this trial both to me and mine. On coming to Brechin, I was led, through my youngest boy’s behaviour, to see what a blessed thing it is to receive the kingdom of God “as a little child.” My little fellow, about four years old, whom I brought with me, gave himself no trouble amid the boats, omnibuses, and railway coaches, on sea, land, and in dark tunnels: his father was at his side, and never a care, or fear, or doubt, or anxiety had he. May we have grace to be led by the hand, and trust to the care and kindness of a reconciled God and Father! 1 [Note: Thomas Guthrie.]

3. The cause of anxiety.—The cause of anxiety is distrust of God. Faith in God and a soul overwhelmed with misgivings come pretty near being mutually exclusive. At any rate a heart filled with the worry which narrows our spiritual horizons, and turns the sweet light of the stars into horrible darkness, has small place in it for any living and sustaining confidence in Him who notes the fall of a sparrow, and who has assured us that He is ready to take upon His own heart all our burdens of care. God has not promised to do everything for us; there are some things we must do for ourselves. But He has promised never to leave or forsake His own. He has promised to save unto the uttermost all who come to Him through Jesus Christ. He has promised that all things shall work together for good to them that love Him. Our necessities, our straitnesses, our wants, our natural burdens, are not surprises to God. He understands them all, feels them all. But in the midst of them all, and with reference to them all, He wishes us to trust Him.

Froude’s religion, so far as it depended upon his conception of God, was a religion of almost unmixed fear. So far as it was of something better, it was purified, first, by a love and admiration for “the holy men of old,” such as the founders of the Oxford Colleges, in whose steps, after his election to his Fellowship, he aspired to tread; secondly, by his affection for Keble, for whom, in the prayer written at the same time, he thanks God, as one who had convinced him of the error of his ways, and in whose presence he tasted happiness; but above all, by his devotion to his mother, in whose recollection he found a consciousness of that blessedness which he had been taught to look for in the presence of Saints and Angels. These were feelings which were better than his religion, and which, if they could have developed and grown with the latter, might have delivered it from fears, and have converted it into a source of peace as well as of activity: but whether from the irremediable taint of the past, or owing to influence that proved too strong for Keble’s, this growth did not go on. 1 [Note: E. A. Abbott, Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman.]

Missing the Infinite, man grasps the finite good, clings passionately to it, and struggles with a melancholy earnestness to become his own Providence. But with faith in God—the belief that He has not launched a world into existence from which thereafter He sits remote, merely watching it, or now and then interfering to help a stumbling creature when it calls; the belief that He remains within His own creation, as its inmost and essential life; the great Sustainer, in whom it lives and moves, and has its being—with this faith, I say, the heart of the creature who is also a child, may well disburden itself of care. It is careful for nothing, simply because it believes that God is careful for everything; that His tender mercies are over all His works; and that the laws by which He governs the world are but the expressions of His living will, the signs of His immediate agency; not the handiwork of a retired Artificer, but the manifestation of an ever present God. 2 [Note: W. Knight, Things New and Old, 101.]

The crosses which we make for ourselves by over-anxiety as to the future are not heaven-sent crosses. We tempt God by our false wisdom, seeking to forestall His arrangements, and struggling to supplement His Providence by our own provisions. The fruit of our wisdom is always bitter. God suffers it to be so, that we may be discomfited when we forsake His Fatherly guidance. The future is not ours: we may never have a future; or, if it comes, it may be wholly different from all we foresaw. Let us shut our eyes to that which God hides from us in the hidden depths of His wisdom. Let us worship without seeing; let us be silent, and lie still. The crosses actually laid upon us always bring their own special grace and consequent comfort with them; we see the hand of God when it is laid upon us. But the crosses wrought by anxious forebodings are altogether beyond God’s dispensations; we meet them without the special grace adapted to the need—nay, rather in a faithless spirit, which precludes grace; and so everything seems hard and unendurable. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” our Lord has said; and the evil of each day becomes good if we leave it to God. 3 [Note: Fénelon, Letters to Women.]

II

A Precept

“Let your requests be made known unto God.”

Relief can never be obtained, and the Divine command of the text obeyed, by a mere effort of will. No man can shake off care simply by trying to do so. Neither can it be done by arguing with ourselves as to its uselessness and hurtfulness; nor yet can it be done, nor should it be attempted, by hardening ourselves into an unfeeling stoical indifference. Here is the better way, the only legitimate and effectual way of getting free from care. It is to cast our care on Him who cares for us. It is to bring the burden which we can neither bear nor shake off and leave it at the Lord’s feet in prayer. Prayer is the only real and thorough cure for care. To be full of faith is the only effectual way to be empty of all fear. To flee with it within the veil, and to fall with it at the feet of God, is the only mode of being truly eased of the burden of anxiety and gloom. So “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

A lady reports that, after the solemnities of a communion season, she and a friend were walking along Union Terrace, Aberdeen, behind Dr. Kidd and several of his brethren who had been assisting, when they heard him say—“Can you tell me how it is that, though I can bear great troubles as well as most men, the petty annoyances of life irritate me so that I say things which cause me much grief and shame afterwards, bring discredit on my Saviour’s cause, and give the enemy cause to blaspheme?” The answer came from Mr. Rose, of Nigg—“Yes, brother; you carry your great trials to God, but the little ones you try to manage for yourself, and so fail.” “Aye, aye; that is the true cause, I believe.” 1 [Note: J. Stark, Dr. Kidd of Aberdeen, 259.]

1. The means by which God would have us lay bare our hearts to Him—“ by prayer and supplication.”

(1) Prayer.—The word which is here translated “prayer” refers not to the petitions, but to the mood of the petitioner. It describes a frame of mind. The soul can be in a prayerful attitude, even though it refrains from making requests. All real prayer begins, not in words, but in moods. The great mystics have ever been experts in the knowledge of this secret. They have disciplined their souls to a reverent and receptive pose, until, at all times, their souls have been frankly open to the Divine. They have bowed in silence before the Lord, rejecting, in the first place, the clumsy expedient of words, and they have quietly drawn in breath in the fear of the Lord. It is here that we find the explanation of Paul’s counsel to “pray without ceasing.” If essential prayer be a matter of words, the counsel is impossible; but if essential prayer be a spiritual posture, it is possible to obey the counsel throughout all the changing hours and moments of the years.

Prayer is the great lever of the spiritual life: nay—to speak in various figures—it is the lung by which it breathes, it is the atmosphere in which it floats, the wing by which it speeds its flight, and the language by which it daily communes with its own Original. 1 [Note: W. Knight, Things New and Old, 114.]

Years ago an ingenious inventor tried to build a vessel in such a fashion that the saloon for passengers should remain upon one level, howsoever the hull might be tossed by waves. It was a failure, if I remember rightly. But if we are thus joined to God, He will do for our inmost hearts what the inventor tried to do with the chamber within his ship. The hull may be buffeted, but the inmost chamber where the true self sits will be kept level and unmoved. Prayer in the highest sense, by which I mean the exercise of aspiration, trust, submission—prayer will fight against and overcome all anxieties. 2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

(2) Supplication.—Actual petition for the supply of present wants is meant by “supplication.” To ask for that supply will very often be to get it. To tell God what I think I need goes a long way always to bringing me the gift that I do need. If I have an anxiety which I am ashamed to speak to Him, that silence is a sign that I ought not to have it; and if I have a desire that I do not feel I can put into a prayer, that feeling is a warning to me not to cherish such a desire. There are many vague and oppressive anxieties that come and cast a shadow over our hearts, but if we could once define them, and put them into plain words, we should find that we vaguely fancied them a great deal larger than they were, and that the shadow they flung was immensely longer than the thing that flung it. Put your anxieties into definite speech. It will very often reduce their proportions to your own apprehension. Speaking of them, even to a man who may be able to do little to help, eases them wonderfully. Put them into definite speech to God; and there are very few of them that will survive.

Some weavers were working diligently in an Eastern palace. The men and women wondered to see a little child amongst them, whose work always went smoothly on, without a break or even a snarl in the thread. They asked her how it happened that they could not succeed so well; their silk constantly got frayed and broken, and the beautiful pattern was worn and soiled by their mistakes and tears. The child answered: “I only go and tell the King.” They declared that they did the same, going to Him once a week. “But,” she softly answered,

“I go and get the knot untied

At the first little tangle.”

That is the secret of perpetual peace. If we were only careful always to take our little anxieties to our King—and to leave them there—we should form habits strong enough to carry us triumphantly through every great crisis. 1 [Note: Dora Farncomb, The Vision of His Face, 142.]

We tell Thee of our care,

Of the sore burden pressing day by day;

And in the light and pity of Thy face

The burden melts away.

We breathe our secret wish,

The importunate longing which no man may see;

We ask it humbly, or, more restful still,

We leave it all to Thee.

The thorns are turned to flowers;

All dark perplexities seem light and fair;

A mist is lifted from the heavy hours,

And Thou art everywhere. 2 [Note: Susan Coolidge.]

(3) Thanksgiving.—“With thanksgiving.” This may be taken to indicate both the general spirit in which suppliants should approach the Throne of Grace, and also an important and indispensable part of their worship. It may teach on the one hand that when we go into God’s presence, however distressful our circumstances may be, we should not be moody, morose, doubtful; but rather, in respect to Him and His help, full of hope, and full of gratitude. It may teach on the other hand that while engaged in asking new blessings and fresh supplies of grace, we should not fail to call to mind and to record with thanks those that have been already received.

“With thanksgiving”—Paul would never omit that element from his receipt when giving his cure for care. Half our worries would immediately melt away if we began to sing a psalm of praise. Some anxieties can resist everything except thanksgiving. When that begins, they melt away like icebergs in tropical seas. The life that is ungrateful is very cold, and icebergs abound in its atmosphere. Let us raise the temperature and we shall be amazed at the results. A really thankful heart is so crowded with the sense of God’s mercies that it can offer no hospitality to worry and care.

Thanklessness is a parching wind, drying up the fountain of pity, the dew of mercy, the streams of grace. It is a destructive thing, an enemy of grace, hostile to salvation. As far as I have any insight, most dear brethren, nothing so displeases God in the sons of grace, the converted, as ingratitude. For it blocks up the way against grace, and where it is, thenceforth grace finds no access, no place. Thinkest thou that to such an one greater grace shall be given, and not rather what he seemeth to have be taken from him? For doth not that rightly seem to be lost which is given to one ungrateful? or may not God repent to have given what seemeth to be lost? Grateful then and devout must a man be, who longeth that the gift of grace which he hath received should not only abide with him, but be multiplied. 1 [Note: St. Bernard.]

The circulations of the ocean constitute a plain and permanent picture of the relations between a human soul and a redeeming God. The sea is always drawing what it needs down to itself, and also always sending up of its abundance into the heavens. It is always getting, and always giving. So, when in the covenant the true relation has been constituted, the redeemed one gets and gives, gives and gets; draws from God a stream of benefits, sends up to God the incense of praise. 2 [Note: W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul, 90.]

I myself am exceedingly variable in spirits, and I always find nothing is near so delightful and inspiriting when I am in low spirits as praising and thanking God in the midst of His works. Often and often at the farm have I stood between the cottage and garden door and thanked God for making the world so fair and myself so susceptible of its beauty. I am generally quite happy after that. 1 [Note: Bishop Walsham How.]

2. The scope of our intercourse with God.—“In everything.” There is absolutely no restriction as to the kind of business that is to bring us to the Throne of Grace; and correspondingly there is no excuse for keeping any kind of burden to ourselves. It is not about what we call religious matters only, or even about great and important matters, whether sacred or secular, that we are permitted to go to God. It is about all matters whatsoever that concern us. Whatever touches our interests, whatever raises a care within our bosoms, whatever is worth an anxiety or thought, may be made, and should be made, the subject of prayer. He to whom we go is indeed the Infinite Jehovah; but He is also our Father, deeply interested in all that affects our welfare and comfort; and as there is nothing too great for His power to accomplish, so there is nothing too small for His condescension to notice.

He is not a man of little faith who puts little things into his prayer. That very thing shows him to be a man of great faith. A feeble pulsation in the heart may keep the life-blood circulating for a while near the centre and in the vitals; but it requires a great strong life in the heart to send the blood down into the tips of the fingers, and make it circulate through the outmost, smallest branches of the veins. In like manner, it is the strongest spiritual life that animates the whole course, even to the minutest transactions, and brings to God the smallest matters of our personal history as well as the great concern of pardon and eternal life.

A multitude of little pimples may be quite as painful and dangerous as a large ulcer. A cloud of gnats may put as much poison into a man with their many stings as will a snake with its one bite. And if we are not to get help from God by telling Him about little things, there will be very little of our lives that we shall tell Him about at all. For life is a mountain made up of minute flakes. The years are only a collection of seconds. Every man’s life is an aggregate of trifles. 2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]

The Antidote to Anxiety

Literature

Allon (H.), The Indwelling Christ, 107.

Barry (A.), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey, 313.

Dewhurst (E. M.), The King and His Servants, 160.

Gordon (S. D.), Quiet Talks on Service, 193.

Hare (A. W.), The Alton Sermons, 384.

Hickey (F. F.), Short Sermons, 2nd Ser., 9.

Jowett (J. H.), The High Calling, 180.

Knight (W.), Things New and Old, 109.

Maclaren (A.), Leaves from the Tree of Life, 219.

McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, iii. 375.

Martin (C. H.), Plain Bible Addresses, 199.

Pierson (A. T.), The Heart of the Gospel, 177.

Purves (P. C.), The Divine Cure for Heart-Trouble, 16.

Roberts (D.), A Letter from Heaven, and other Sermons, 211.

Roberts (W. Page), Our Prayer-Book, Conformity and Conscience, 253.

Yorke (H. L.), The Law of the Spirit, 269.

Christian World Pulpit, viii. 110 (Lamson); xii. 143 (Fleming); xvi. 205 (Goadby); xliv. 403 (Jefferis).

Literary Churchman, xxiv. (1878) 509.

Preacher’s Magazine, ix. (1898) 81.