| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 13 |
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God does then bring us into temptation. At least, he suffers us to meet temptation, not that we may fall, but that we may have the struggle and come out of it stronger, ready for nobler and worthier life and service. The Master’s cheering word to every follower of him as he enters any struggle is, “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne.” The day of temptation is doomsday to every struggler. They show you a place on the great mountain divide in the west, where the destiny of a dewdrop, trembling on a leaf, is decided by the direction of the breeze that is blowing. If the wind is from the west, the dewdrop will fall to the eastward of an invisible line and will be carried into the Mississippi, and to the Atlantic Ocean. But if there is even the gentlest breeze from the east, the drop of dew will fall to the west of the divide, and will start on its way to the Pacific. So in experiences of temptation, human lives tremble on the divide of the eternities. We know not the momentousness of our decisions even in what seem most trivial matters.
We understand now the meaning of temptation and the importance of its issue. It is the part of true life to make it a blessing. Some tell us that the petition in the Lord’s Prayer is cowardly – “Bring us not into temptation.” If nobler character lies beyond the struggle, why should we shrink from the struggle? Why not seek it and welcome it? Yet we dare not rush recklessly into peril. Our Master never bids us put ourselves needlessly in the way of danger. We are to ask for guidance and then go where he wants us to go, not thinking of the peril. Christ did not pray that his disciples should be taken out of the world, that is, away from its enmity and danger; his prayer rather was that they should never fail in any duty, and should then be protected from the world’s evil, that is from sin; that in their battles and struggles they should be kept unspotted.
The prayer, “Bring us not into temptation,” is never to be a request to be spared perilous duty, or that temptation, coming in the path of duty, shall be avoided. We should never be afraid of anything in the divine will. George Macdonald describes thus what he calls a sane, wholesome, practical working faith: “First, that it is a man’s business to do the will of God; second, that God takes on himself the special care of that man; and third, that therefore that man ought never to be afraid of anything.” If you go into any way of temptation or danger unsent, unled of God, you go without God’s protection and have no promise of shelter or deliverance. But if, after your morning prayer, “Bring us not into temptation today,” you find yourself facing the fiercest struggle, you need have no fear. Christ is with you, and no harm can touch you.
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