JSL-25-Chapter Eight:

Chapter Eight:
The Everyday Life In making our pilgrimage through the world, all of us, whatever our state or condition, come to extraordinary emergencies, and have special occasions of trial and difficulty. These, however, are comparatively few. It is only once in a while that the daily routine of existence is broken up; for in general the current of life flows onward, if not without shoals and obstructions, still with no great disturbance. To-day is very much like yesterday and the day before; and perhaps for many weeks there has been but little in our experience outside of the ordinary round of commonplace duties and pleasures. Every night we lie down and sleep, and every morning we go to our regular business, domestic, commercial, professional, or whatever it is; and while there may never be a day in which we do not encounter more or less of trial—something calculated to annoy and worry us, some demand upon our patience, some need to control our tempers and our tongues, the great trials come but seldom, and are, therefore, properly called extraordinary.

It is remarkable that in general we bear these latter with more fortitude, and with the exhibition of a truer Christian spirit, than we do the former. We seem to summon up or latent powers, and to bring forward our reserved forces so as successfully to meet an unusual emergency. The extraordinary occasion arouses us to extraordinary effort; we become watchful over ourselves; we begin to examine our hearts and lives, and we pray with unwonted fervency. We draw in our thoughts and affections from the world; we lose our interest in it; our eye becomes single, and so our whole body is full of light. Thus in the perilous sickness of ourselves or our families, in the darkness and sorrow of a broken household, in the overwhelming calamity of flood or flame, the very necessities of the case, and our own utter helplessness, bring us close to God, the Source of all strength, and we are borne safely through the crisis, and carried forward once more into the ordinary life. The great apostle to the Gentiles barely mentions the more serious events of his history. Stonings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, scourgings, for these and such like he is always fully prepared. He expects them; he has secured the grace of fortitude and of patience that he may properly bear them; he even welcomes them, and rejoices in them. And when the great crisis of life is impending, when he is about to be “offered,” he looks forward to his martyrdom with serene composure—nay, he barely glances at it, while he fixes his gaze upon the “crown of life” which is just beyond, and which fills his soul with rapture. Compared with “the exceeding and external weight of glory” into which he was so soon to enter, no earthly affliction, however heavy and prolonged, could seem other than light and momentary.

Thus was he completely armed and armored with respect to the more dreadful and perilous conflicts of life. None of these things moved him. But when it came to the little “thorn in the flesh,” the difference in his feeling and behavior is noteworthy. He was not ready for it. It came as a surprise. He was amply able to meet and bear larger troubles; his mental and spiritual preparation for these was abundant; but he seems not to have deemed it necessary to provide himself with grace to endure so small a thing as a thorn! We do not know what this “thorn” was, but we do know that it was comparatively very insignificant—like a splinter in the finger, painful, but not serious, distracting to the attention, but not dangerous. And we can but notice that, until he was better instructed, he was unwilling to bear it. He besought the Lord thrice, not for strength to endure it, but that it might be taken away from him. No doubt his experience with this thing was very much like ours in similar cases. We can meet a formidable adversary. We are willing to “take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.” There is something manly and heroic in this; something worthy of our attention and our effort; something, too, by which we can manifest our trust in God, that his “grace is sufficient” for these things. But a grain of sand in the shoe, a cinder in the eye, a thorn in the flesh—these are mere irritations, annoyances, things which fret and worry, without seeming to be serious enough to call for divine grace, and the bringing into action of Christian virtues. If a child is prostrated with typhoid fever, the mother gives up everything for it, and does it cheerfully and as a matter of course. Day in and day out, during many long and anxious weeks, she devotes herself exclusively to the little sufferer, and does it with a patience and a fortitude that are well nigh inexhaustible. It is an emergency, a great and serious occasion, and it brings out all the best traits of her character, while she seeks and obtains special grace from Heaven that she may be able to hold out in the performance of her task of love. But this same woman, so sweetly meek, so admirably patient, so trustfully devoted in the presence of this extraordinary and great occasion, may be very different when subjected to the test of the little troubles and irritations of the every-day life. She may exhibit more impatience over the breaking a plate, or the burning of a biscuit, or the soiling of a garment, or the carelessness of a servant, than she manifested during the whole weary period in which the typhoid fever was running its course. But we are prone to make not only the exercise and development of the passive virtues depend upon the extraordinary, the same is true in large measure of the active. If a grand movement is to be set on foot and urged forward; if a great moral or religious reformation is to be brought about; if some momentous interest, some supremely important cause, is to be supported, we rise with the emergency and become equal to it. We enter with spirit and enthusiasm upon the great and unusual enterprise, and devote to its accomplishment all our best thoughts and powers. Thus the active virtues, zeal, enterprise, liberality, diligence, and whatever else terminates upon that which is external to us, are enlisted and brought into exercise, and by exercise that are developed. But what if the feebler calls of the daily life, the fainter appeals which the constantly recurring, and therefore ordinary circumstances of our existence — what if these be disregarded?

Alas, what progress shall we make towards perfection if we go forward only on great occasions, and under the influence of that which is exception, and of comparatively rare occurrence? The missionary cause comes before us in the form of active solicitation only two or three times a year; and it is but seldom that we are called upon to build churches, to endow colleges, to institute reformations, or “to do some great thing.” Mercifully, too, the more serious trials and afflictions of life come to us generally after long intervals. But the little ones — the little opportunities for doing good, and the little accidents and incidents of domestic and business life; the word that tends to rouse the temper, and to provoke retaliation; the slight that manifests unfriendliness; the advantage take of us in a trade; the gossip that would make us forget the law of love; the worries everywhere and always connected with servants and children and housekeeping—these and such as these enter into the very warp and woof of every-day life. We can not avoid them if we would; we need not if we could. Properly understood, they are not evils, save as we make them such. Like the thorn in Paul’s flesh, they have their good design. They furnish the means by which we can exercise ourselves unto godliness, by which we can bring into action, and thus into development, qualities and virtues which would else become atrophied and impotent.

As, therefore, the providences which daily surround us, whether of joy or grief, of ease or pain, of encouragement or provocation, of sickness or health, of success or disappointment, are wisely and lovingly sent, let us wisely and lovingly improve them. It is not approbation of the words love, patience, gentleness, sweetness, fidelity, nor yet the endorsement of the doctrine of Scripture respecting them, that constitutes our progress, but it is to be what they represent; and for this we need the very circumstances in which God has placed us.