By J.R. Miller
Some of the saddest cries that wail out in the Psalms, are sighings for the joy of the divine presence, temporarily lost. And when we come to think of it, there is no other loss in all the range of possible losses, which is as great as the breaking of our communion with God. This is not the ordinary estimate. We speak with heavy heart--of our earthly sorrows. When bereavements come, and our homes are emptied and our tender joys borne away--we think there is not grief like ours. Our lives are darkened, and very dreary does this earth appear to us as we walk its paths in deep loneliness. Then there are other losses--losses of friends by alienation; losses of property, of comforts, of health, of reputation.
But there is not one of all these, which is such a calamity--as the loss of God's smile, the hiding of his face, or the interruption of our fellowship with him. Men sigh over their misfortunes which touch only their earthly circumstances, and forget that there is no misfortune like the decay of spirituality in their hearts. It would be well if all of us understood this. There are earthly misfortunes under which hearts remain all the while warm and tender, like the flower-roots beneath the winter's snows, ready to burst into glorious bloom when the springtime comes. And there are worldly prosperities under which spiritual life withers and dies.
We do not know what God is to us--until, in some way, we lose the sense of his presence and the consciousness of his love. This is true of all our blessings. We do not know their value to us--until they are lost or imperiled. We do not prize health until it is shattered and broken, and we can never have it restored again. We do not recognize the richness and splendor of youth until it has fled, with all its glorious opportunities, and worlds cannot buy it back. We do not appreciate the comforts and blessings of Providence until we have been deprived of them, and are driven out of warm homes into the cold paths of a dreary world. We do not estimate the value of our facilities for education and improvement, until the period of these opportunities is gone, and we must enter the hard battle of life unfurnished and unequipped. We do not know how much our friends are to us--until they lie before us silent and cold. Ofttimes the vacant chair, or the deep, unbroken loneliness about us--is the first revealer of the worth of one we have never duly prized.
In like manner, we do not know the blessedness of fellowship with God until his face is darkened, or he seems to have withdrawn himself. Jesus never seemed so precious to the disciples--as when they had him no more. Two of his friends, indeed, never made an open confession of their love for him at all, until his body hung upon the cross. They had loved him secretly all along; but now, as they saw that he was dead, and they could never, as they supposed, do anything more for him, or enjoy his presence again--all their heart's love awoke in them, and they came boldly out and asked for his body, took it down tenderly in the sight of the multitude, and bore it away to loving burial. But for his death--they would never have known how much they loved him, nor how much he was to them!
And I am sure that David never knew what God and God's house were to his soul--until he was driven away from his home and city and could no more enter the sanctuary. As he fled away, it seemed as if his heart would break, and his deepest sorrow was not for the joys of home left behind, for throne and crown and palace and honors--but for the house of God, with its hallowed and blessed communion. All the other bitter griefs and sorrows of the hour were forgotten, or swallowed up, in this greatest of all his griefs--separation from God's presence. I do not believe that the privileges of divine fellowship were ever so precious to him before, while he enjoyed them without hindrance, as when he looked from his exile towards the holy place and could not return to it.
And does not the very commonness of our spiritual blessings conceal from us, their inestimable value to us? Luther somewhere says, "If in his gifts and benefits God were more sparing and close-handed, we would learn to be thankful." The very unbroken continuity of his favors--causes us to lose sight of the Giver, and to forget to prize the gifts themselves. If there were gaps somewhere, we would learn to appreciate the wealth of the divine goodness to us. Who is there among us all, who values highly enough--the tender summer of God's love which broods over us with infinite warmth evermore?
Do we value our privileges as Christians, and improve them--as we would if for a season, we would be deprived of them? Our church privileges, our open Bibles, our religious liberty, our Sunday teaching and communings, our hours of prayer--do we prize these blessings as we would--if we were suddenly torn away, by some cruel fortune, and cast in a land where all these are lacking? Do we appreciate our privileges of fellowship with God as we would--if his love would be withdrawn, and the light of his presence put out?
There is something very sad in the thought that we not only fail to value the rich blessings of God's love--but that we oftentimes thrust them from us, and refuse to take them, thereby wounding the divine heart and impoverishing our own souls. It would be very bitter if any of us should first be made really aware of the presence and grace of Christ--by his vanishing forever from our sight, after having stood at our locked and bolted doors, in wondrous patience, for long years. It would be a bitter thing to learn the glorious blessedness of the things of God's mercy and love--only by seeing them depart forever beyond our reach.
There is another phase of this subject, which ought to bring much comfort to those who are called to suffer earthly losses. If we have God left to us--no other loss is irreparable! A gentleman came home one evening with a heavy heart, and said that he had lost everything he had. Bankruptcy had overtaken him. "We are utterly beggared!" he said. "All is gone--there is nothing left!" His little girl of five years, crept up on his knee, and, looking earnestly into his despairing face, said, "Why, papa, you have mamma and me left." Yes, what is the loss of money, stores, houses, costly furniture, musical instruments and works of art--while love remains?
There is surely enough in God's love, to compensate a thousand times for every earthly deprivation! Our lives may be stripped bare--home, friends, riches, comforts, every sweet voice of love, every note of joy--and we may be driven out from brightness and music and tenderness and shelter into the cold ways of sorrow; and yet if we have God himself left--ought it not to suffice? Are not all earth's blessings gifts from God to us? And is he not able to give us again all that we have lost? Yes, is he not himself infinitely more than all his gifts? If we have him, have we not all things in him?
Therefore it is, that so often we do not learn the depth and riches of God's love, and the sweetness of his presence--until other joys vanish out of our hands, and other loved presences fade away out of sight. The loss of temporal things empties our hearts--to receive unseen and eternal things. The sweeping away of earthly hopes reveals the glory of our heart's refuge in God. Someone has beautifully said, "Our refuges are like the nests of birds; in summer they are hidden among the green leaves--but in winter they are seen among the naked branches." Worldly losses but strip off the foliage, and show us our heart's warm nest in the bosom of God!
