To live in this world is to know the pain of struggle and sorrow. So we can take it for granted that every person we encounter is struggling. We may not know the particulars, but it’s a safe bet that every person we meet is hurting in some way.
There is no denying that, as we grow older, our faces come to be a mirror of the contents of our hearts. “When you speak of heaven, let your face light up. When you speak of hell — well, then your everyday face will do” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon).
The world remains the same generation after generation. There is a certain context common to all men and women, no matter when and where they have lived. We experience the same joys, we suffer the same sorrows, and we encounter the same challenges.
Whatever ease and pleasure may be ours here, that should only whet our appetites for the real joys to come. And whatever difficulty or pain we may have to deal with while “on the job,” that should only increase our capacity to enjoy “quittin’ time.”
In every situation, we must ask what is the best thing that can be done, and having done what we knew was best, we must learn to be gratified by the knowledge that we’ve done the honorable thing. Integrity should be a source of joy to us.
Is love’s pain to be avoided? I know not what choice others may make, but I shall continue to keep my heart open to love. Even at the bitter end of love’s sweetness, there is no grief great enough to keep me from the clear, pure joy of having loved.
“Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” There is not a purer joy in the world, and no more liberating experience. Yielding to someone else’s dreams will break many a chain the devil has made.
When the final tally is made, I hope that I won’t have failed to encourage anyone who needed it. It’s a fine thing to have hope, but it is an even finer thing to give hope. That, above all, is what I want to do. And I’m confident that you do too.
If we’ve been Christians very long, we may not remember what it was like to try to deal with the sufferings of this life with no hope of anything better. But one hour back in that situation would remind us how valuable our hope is.
When we remember the past, as we certainly will, we must remember it with such an attitude that we are helped in the here and now. God intends for our lives to go forward — and when we’re tempted to go backward, we need to remember Lot’s wife.
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