By J.R. Miller
Many people imagine that they could live very much better--if their circumstances were different! In their failure to live a noble and worthy life--they find comfort in laying the blame on some difficult circumstance in their lot in life.
This is very foolish. For one thing, it does no good. Blaming circumstances will not change them. After all, they are our circumstances, and we must live out our life in the midst of them. Besides, God in his providence, has put us just where we find ourselves! And unless we claim to be wiser than God--we must conclude that we are in the right place-at least, that it is quite possible for us to live a true Christian life, right where we are.
God does not choose for us the place where we can have the most pleasant time, with the least friction and the fewest weights and encumbrances. Life on the earth is a school--and he puts us where we shall receive the best training. The easier place might be more comfortable--but the harder place does the more for us--and makes the more out of us.
Some people think that if they could get away from others and live alone--that they would be better Christians. People irritate them, tempt them, stir up the evil which is in them, and vex them. But we do not grow best in solitude, and apart from others. The goodness that is good--only because there is no friction, no provocation, nothing to try it--is scarcely worth the name. Life needs life--to school it and develop it.
The old monks were wrong in their idea of Christian living, when they supposed that they could reach a higher state of holiness by withdrawing from men and dwelling alone. God's plan is to set the solitary in families, rather than to separate families into solitariness. We all need to be alone sometimes. There should be hours when we enter into our closet and shut the door--that we may look in upon our own heart and hold communion with God; but the closet is not to be our abiding place.
We owe duties to others. To live only for one's self, though the aspiration be purely for holiness--is contrary to the spirit of true discipleship. Our duties to others are as manifold and as diversified as the varying phases and conditions of life's reciprocal relations. We are debtors to all men, far and near. God wants us on the earth to fulfill these duties. We are not to serve him by devotion apart from men--but in relationship with others. Those who leave society and flee to the cloister, simply run away from their chief mission! We are not left in this world after conversion, merely to pray and praise; God wants us to be useful; to do his work; to run his errands; to help his needy, suffering ones; to train others for his service; to fight his battles.
Nor is it only for the sake of others, that God has appointed us to live out our life among men--rather than apart and alone; it is for our own sake as well. We grow best amid other lives. People are means of grace to us. It may seem to us that if we could get away from society--that we would escape many temptations, and be able to live nearer to God. But we would then miss the blessing which comes from struggle and victory. Heaven and its honors are for "those who overcome." Not to enter the struggle--is to fail of the white robe and palm of the victor. The best things in life are not found along flowery walks--but in the fields of conflict. There are qualities in us--which can only be developed in struggle. To find easy places away from the strife of battle--is to lose the discipline which makes the grand and godly character.
We grow best under the pressure of duty, where we are compelled to think of others and serve them. There are those who imagine that if they could get away from others--and from absorbing contacts with other lives, that they could live better. They think that they could then enjoy unbroken communion with God. But this is not the divine plan for a human life. Love to God does not stand alone--as life's single duty. Love to man is always joined with it, and the two duties are so intertwined that neither can be performed without the other. We cannot love God--and not love our fellow men. We cannot serve God--and not serve our brother.
Sometimes we imagine that if we could get away from business cares, household burdens, and social obligations--that we could be better Christians. It seems to us that these duties are not favorable to spiritual growth--and that we could be holier and could live more as Christ lived--if we were freed from their exacting and absorbing claims. But this is a mistake. It is in the doing of these common duties --that our character and faculties are best developed. God puts the new life into our heart--but we must work it out into strength and beauty--and there is no way to do this, but by exercise. If we would develop the love in our heart--we must love people. The sentiment must take practical form; the seed must be cultivated; and for this no mere cloister will do. If we would learn patience, there is no school but in the society of others, which requires us to exercise patience.
Jesus said that true greatness is won by serving; that he who serves most is greatest; that we can gain this spiritual eminence only by filling our place in the midst of human needs and sufferings, where continually the pressure is upon us, calling for service. The serving must be real serving of actual living people; no fine sentiment alone will bring us into true greatness. Good feelings and dispositions, of whatever kind, can become part of the fiber of life--only when they are wrought out in experience. Spiritual graces cannot be cultivated in the abstract. Godly character is more than sentiment--it is sentiment incarnated, grown into life and reality.
Instead therefore of being hindrances to the development of our Christian life and character, our social and domestic duties are in the largest measure helpful. To tear ourselves out of our place among people, in order to get rid of these duties--would be to leave whole fields of our character uncultivated, and many of the richest possibilities of our regenerated life undeveloped. The common duties that the daily round brings to our hand, although they may seem to be far from spiritual in their influence, and may seem to draw us off from communion with God by keeping us absorbed in and occupied with earthly tasks--are to us really not hindrances--but rich means of grace. We grow best Godward--when we are serving best manward, in Christ's name and for his sake.
Therefore, in the cultivation of the Christian life and character, we can do nothing better than attend with fidelity and diligence--to the duties which belong to us in our varied relationships. The head of a family should take up promptly, as the first biddings of his new Master, his duties as a husband and father, performing them with new faithfulness and tenderness, and with the new motive in his heart of love to Christ. On becoming a Christian, a child in the home should accept as the "Father's business" for him at present--his duties of obedience and honor to his earthly father and mother. The will of God for brothers and sisters beginning to follow Christ--is to render to each other all the sweet and helpful service of patient, unselfish love--which belongs to their sacred relationship.
We are called to walk with God--but not ordinarily by withdrawing from among men. We are to walk with God in the place to which he has assigned us. We are called to be holy--but holiness is not some vague, nebulous thing; some abstract condition of soul attained apart from common practical life. Holiness is obedience to duty--and no one can be holy and neglect the service to his fellow men which his relationships impose upon him.
