| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 13 |
Page 4 |
The problem of Christian living then is not to escape struggle, to avoid meeting danger, but in any peril in the line of duty to be preserved from harm. Temptation is not sin. Sin begins when temptation is listened to, parleyed with, and yielded to. There is no sin in the feeling of resentment or anger which rises in us when we are insulted, when injury is done to us. We cannot prevent the momentary feeling of wrong; that is not sin if we gain a victory over it, if we turn the rising bitter feeling into a prayer, and the impulse to resentment into a deed of kindness. But when the bitterness is allowed to nest in our heart we have sinned.
Safety in temptation requires that we solemnly and resolutely reject every impulse to do anything that is wrong. We must watch the merest beginnings of departure from right. We have our weak points, and must keep a double guard at these places. We must watch our companionships. We had better sacrifice a friendship that has brought us much pleasure, than by retaining it suffer contamination or defiling. The influence of the world is most subtle. It is easy to drift unconsciously into its atmosphere, and to have our lives hurt by its spirit.
In one of Maarten Maartens’ novels, one of the characters is a pure hearted girl who might be judged to have no consciousness of sin. She, however, leaves her quiet home and with friends visits Paris and Monte Carlo. At the close of one day she receives a black edged letter, telling her of the death of her old pastor. He had sent his love to her just before he died. The event recalls the good man’s birthday message to her some time before, which she had overlooked. The message was, “Keep yourself unspotted from the world.” The words now started from the page with painful vividness.
Then the book goes on to tell how the girl sat stroking the back of one hand with the other, mechanically, as if to wipe off the dim stains of the day. She felt soiled as well as saddened. She opened the window and looked up at the stars. Then her head sank on the window ledge, and the tears fell freely on the blots that no tears could wipe away. She had not gone into the world’s evil ways. She had not given up her Christ – only she had gone into the atmosphere of worldliness, and her garments were no longer unspotted. The incident tells us how easy it is to be hurt by the world.
Page 4