By J.R. Miller
The Divine ideal for life is health, not sickness; enthusiasm, not languor; branches bending with fruit, not covered only with leaves. Christ wants us to have abundant spiritual life. He is infinitely patient with weakness--but He would have us strong. He accepts the smallest service anyone may render--but He desires us to serve Him with our whole heart. The weakest faith has power and gets blessing from Him--but He is best pleased with the faith which triumphs over all difficulties and accomplishes impossibilities. He does not despise the smoking flax, with merely a spark remaining--He will nourish it until it glows in a hot flame; but He wishes us to be burning and shining lights. Even a little measure of love pleases Him--but He longs for love which fills all the being. The spiritual life begins as a tiny spring of water bubbling up in our hearts--but the Master desires it to grow until it becomes rivers of water. He came that His followers might have life--and might have it abundantly.
The abundant life need not be a showy and conspicuous one, nor one which makes much noise in the world. Some people suppose that they are living to a worthy purpose, only when they are filling a prominent and conspicuous place among men, doing work which draws all eyes to it. They think they are of no use--if they are not making a stir in the world. But there are some whose voices are heard widely in the community where they dwell--and yet have little in them which pleases God. They are "rich in external religion--but poor in inward experience." Or one may have an abundant spiritual life, and yet move among men so quietly as almost to be unheard and unknown. It was of our Lord Himself that it was written in an ancient prophecy- "He shall not strive, nor cry aloud; neither shall any one hear His voice in the streets."
No other man ever had such fullness and abundance of life as Christ Himself had, and yet no other ever lived and wrought so quietly. Noise is not power. The real power of life is in its influence, in its force of character, in its personality. Many of those who are fullest of Christ, are least known among men. Humility is one of the divinest of graces. One asked Augustine what he regarded as the first of all Christian virtues. He answered, "Humility." "The second?" He answered, "Humility." And the third?" "Humility." Our Lord put the same quality first in His Beatitudes--"Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is the lowly ones of earth, who live nearest to the heart of Christ and have most of His Spirit in them.
The abundant life need not be known by its large monetary gifts. The tendency is to measure every man's value to the world, by his charities. No doubt money has its value. Those who give to education, to religion, to philanthropy, if their gifts are wisely bestowed, greatly bless the world. Nothing should be said to chill the ardor of those who devote their money to worthy causes. Yet money never is the best gift which a man may bestow upon his fellows.
There is a story of a famishing pilgrim in the desert who found a sack which he thought contained food. When he had eagerly torn it open it had in it a great treasure of pearls--some man's whole fortune dropped in the sands. But he flung it from him in anguish. It was food that he needed--and the bag of pearls was only a bitter mockery to his hunger. There are great human needs which money has no power to satisfy--but to which a true heart's gentle love will be the very bread of God. There are sorrows which money cannot soothe--but which a word of loving comfort will change into songs.
So far as we know, Jesus never gave money, and yet the world has never known another such a lavish giver as He was. Imagine Him going about with His hands full of coins and dispensing them among the poor, the lame, the blind, the sick--money, and nothing else. What a poor, paltry service His would then have been in comparison with the wonderful and gracious ministry of kindness and love which He wrought!
The abundant life may not have money to give, and yet it may fill a whole community with blessings. It may go out with sympathy, with comfort, with inspirations of cheer and hope, and may make countless hearts braver and stronger. We do not know the value of the ministry, the influence upon others--of a strong, pure, peaceful, victorious face. A Hindu woman met on the street a missionary who could not speak her language and said not a word to her. He only looked into her face and pointed upward. She hastened home and said that she had seen an angel of heaven. The glory of God shone on the missionary's countenance. We do not know when the joy and the love in our faces may put new hope into fainting hearts, and make men able to win the victory over depression or despondency, or over a great temptation.
The secret of abundant helpfulness--is found in the desire to be a help, a blessing, to all we meet. One wrote to a bereft mother of her little one who had gone to heaven: "Gratia was in our home only once when but five years of age, and yet the influence of her brief stay has been filling every day since in all these three years, especially in the memory of one little sentence which was continually on the child's lips wherever she went--Can I help you?" We begin to be like Christ only when we begin to wish to be helpful. Where this desire is ever dominant, the life is an unceasing blessing. Rivers of water are pouring out from it continually to bless the world.
That is what might be the ministry of everyone of us to others, to all who turn to us with their needs, their loneliness, their heart hungers, their sorrows. We should always have bread in our hands to give to those who are hungry, and cheer for those who come to us fainting and disheartened. Life is but another way of spelling love. It is more love we need--when we cry out for the abundant life. Nothing but love will answer the great human needs about us. Nothing else will make people happier and better. The abundant life Christ came to give--is simply fullness of love in the heart, pulsing out in all the veins.
How can we have this abundance of life? Most of us are conscious of the poverty and thinness of our spiritual life. We are not strong--we faint easily under our burdens and in our struggles. We are not living victoriously--we are defeated continually, and overcome by everything which assails us--by the smallest antagonism and opposition. We are not perennial fountains of love, sending out streams of the water of life for the refreshing and the renewing of the dreary places about us. At the best--the streams of kindness and beneficence flow in our lives only intermittently. We have not much to give to the needy, hungry world which looks to us for cheer and strength. Men ask bread of us, and all we have to give them is a stone. The come expecting fruit, and find nothing but leaves. We are not so full of Christ--that those who touch the hem of our garments feel the thrill of life in them and are healed and are made happier and better. Our spirits are not so charged with the love of God--that our shadow, as we pass along the way, heals those on whom it falls. Our hearts are not so overflowing with a passion for being of use, that we involuntarily, unconsciously, impart to everyone we meet--some helpfulness, some comfort, some inspiration, and some good.
Evidently it is more of the life of Christ in us, that we need to give us richness of character, influence over others, and the power of helpfulness, which our Master desires to find in us. We may have many other things which are desirable and pleasant--we may have money or gifts; or places of honor and power--our hands may be full also of tasks. But lacking this fullness of life, our hearts are really empty. There is but little of God, of Christ, of heaven, in us. We have nothing to give others that would truly enrich them. Our brains may be teeming with plans and projects and dreams of success--but of spiritual life our veins are scant. It is life we need--life, more life.
Our deepest longing, therefore, and our most earnest prayer should be for greater fullness of spiritual life. We need it to measure up to our Master's ideal and purpose for us. We need it, too, to enable us to overcome the world. Our strength is soon exhausted, our lamps soon burn out. The good in us is soon overpowered by the evil about us. We need more of the joy of Christ in us--that we may be able to master the sorrow which flows in upon us from the great world. We need more of the love of Christ--that we may keep our hearts sweet and gracious amid all which makes it hard to be gracious, loving and kind. We need the fullness of the Divine Spirit that we may have something worth while to give to those who turn to us with their emptiness, their hunger, their sorrow.
