By J.R. Miller
One of the finest examples of comfort in sorrow given in the Scriptures, is in Job's case. In quick succession had come the messengers of misfortune and disaster, telling him of troubles and losses, last of all reporting the death of all his children. When this climax of sad tidings was reached, Job tore his garments, fell down upon the ground and worshiped. Instead of losing sight of God under the crushing blows which had fallen upon him, as so many people do at first, in time of great sorrow--he turned at once to God, falling at His feet in reverence and homage. His faith failed not. Everything had been taken--all his earthly blessings had been stripped off. Yet in his grief and bereavement he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."
It is easy enough to say that God gave, and then to bless His name. God is always giving, and we readily see goodness and love in His gifts. It would have been easy for Job, as his prosperity increased, adding to his possessions, covering his fields with flocks, to say, "It is God who gives all this," and then to add, "Blessed be His holy name." It would have been easy as, one by one, his children came, bringing gladness and brightness into his home, to praise God for them, and to say, "The Lord gave--blessed be name of the Lord."
But it was not so easy now, when all this prosperity had vanished, and when his children lay dead, to put the new chord into the song and say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Yet that is just what Job did. It was the Lord who had given him all that had made his life happy--and it was the same Lord who now had taken everything away--the same Lord and the same love.
There seems to have been in the stricken father, a trust which was not shaken by all the calamities which had fallen upon him in such swift succession. He was kept in perfect peace. He had received good at God's hands in countless ways, and when trouble and disaster came--he saw no reason to change his thoughts of God as his friend. He did not complain, nor blame God--but accepted the losses of property and now the sudden smiting down of his children, with unquestioning confidence. It was the same Lord, and the same love, that had first given--and now had taken away.
There is immeasurable comfort in this truth, for all who are called to give back again, the gifts which God has bestowed upon them. God is a giving God--but He is also a God who sometimes takes away, and, in taking away, He has not changed in His character, nor in His feeling toward us, His children. He loves us just as truly and as tenderly when He takes away the things or the people we love, as He did when He gave them into our hands. They were sent to us in love, and for our good they came with their blessing for our life. Then the taking away is also in love, and has good and a blessing in it.
This is true, for example, of the friends we have. We are sure of the goodness which gives them to us. They bring divine blessings from God. We say of them, "The Lord gave--blessed be the name of the Lord." We have no doubt whatever concerning the goodness of God in giving our friends to us. But by and by they are taken from us. One of every two friends must some day see the other called away, and must stand, bearing an unshared grief, by the other's grave. Can we finish Job's song of faith then and say, "And the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Can we believe that there is as true and holy love in the taking away--as there was in the giving?
It is not necessary that we be able to discover or to see clearly the goodness in the experience of loss or sorrow. It is here that faith comes in. We believe in God as our Father, and we may trust His goodness, even when it seems to be tearing down what awhile ago it built up, when it takes from us what on a day bright with love and blessing, it gave. The simplest faith is that which asks no questions--and does not care to know the reasons for God's ways. Ofttimes we cannot find reasons--God does not show us why He does this or that.
Yet while we may not be able fully to understand, we may conceive of elements of goodness even in the taking away. For one thing, we know it is better for our friends in that home of love into which God calls them, than it ever could have been here. The true thought of Christian dying, is that it is a phase or process of life. The sorest misfortune that could come to any Christian--would be never to die! There are developments of life which can be reached only by passing through the experience of dying. Happy as our Christian friends may have been here, and rich and beautiful as was their life--we know that they have entered sweeter deeper joy, and that their life is fuller and richer where they now are with Christ. True love in its very essence is unselfish, and it ought to mean much to us in reconciling us to our loss--to know that our friends have been taken into larger blessedness. We ought to rejoice in their new happiness and in the greater honor which is shown to them, in their entering into heaven.
Then they are kept safe and secure for us, in the home of God. We really have not lost them, although they have been taken out of our sight. They lose nothing of their beauty or their excellence of character in passing through death. The things in them which made them dear to us in this world, they will have when we shall see them again. Indeed, they will have grown into rarer beauty and into greater dearness when we find them again.
We know, further, since God is love, that when He takes our friends into richer life, He will send compensation to us, too, in some way. Even the loss and the sorrow will yield their gain and their ministry of good, unless by our attitude of mind and heart, we miss the blessing. It is possible for us to fail to get the good which God sends, shutting our heart against it. But there is no doubt that in every loss, a gain is offered to us. When God takes away one blessing--He gives another. Perhaps the withdrawal of the human object of love--makes more room in the heart for God Himself. Or the taking away of the strength which has meant so much to us, trains us to more dependence on God, thus bringing out in us qualities of which hitherto we had been unaware. Or the sorrow itself deepens our spiritual life and enriches our experience, giving us a new power of sympathy through which we may become better comforters and helpers of others.
Then the taking of our earthly loved ones from our side through the gates of blessedness, makes heaven more real to us, because they now walk there. Thus, in many ways, does new blessing come in place of what has been taken away.
Once more, we know too that God never really takes away from us, out of our life, any gift or blessing that He bestows. The flower we love, may fade--but the flower is in our heart and is ours forever. A picture is lent to you for a little while and then is removed--but while it hung on your wall and you gazed at it, it found its way into your heart, and now none can ever take it from you. Your friend walked with you a few or many days, and then vanished as to his human presence--but the threads of his life are so inextricably entangled with yours, that he and you can never be really separated. What God takes away, is but the form which our eyes can see. This He keeps for us for a time until it has grown into fuller beauty and until we have grown, too, into larger capacity for love and for appreciation, and then He will give it back to us.
So it is only for a little while that God takes from us our loved ones. We shall have them back again, made into immortal beauty. The hopes we mourn as having perished, are yet in Christ's hands. He will keep them safe for us and at length will give them back to us in radiant and imperishable loveliness. In this life we see only the beginnings of our good things--we see them only in bud and blossom; the full fruit, the ripeness we shall not get until we enter the eternal and better life. One of the surprises of heaven, will be our finding there the precious hopes, joys, and dreams which seemed to have perished on earth--not left behind--but all carried forward and ready to be given into our hands the moment we get home.
