| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 13 |
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How may we get divine help in our struggles with temptation? Only the other day one was almost bitterly complaining of God because he had allowed a friend to fall into grievous sin after the earnest prayer that the friend might be kept. “Why did God let my friend fall?” was the question that was asked, as if God had failed to do his part, as if it were God’s fault that the friend had fallen. We must remember that God does not keep any one from sin by force. He does not build a wall around us, that the evil cannot get near us. He keeps us through our own will, our own choice. But he will always help us when we strive to be true.
There is a luminous word about temptation in one of St. Paul’s epistles: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.” We never can plead that our temptation is too great for human strength. It is never necessary for us to fall. We may overcome in the bitterest struggle. God keeps watch, and will never permit the temptation to become greater than we are able to bear. He does not pamper us and keep us from struggle. He wants us to be good soldiers. He wants us to learn to stand and to be brave, true, and strong. But when he sees that the temptation is growing so hard that we cannot longer resist it, he comes with help. He makes a way of escape – opens some door by which we may have relief or deliverance. Peter was not kept from temptation the night of the Lord’s betrayal – it was necessary that he should be tried and that his own strength might fail. In no other way could Peter be prepared for his work. But Jesus kept his eye on his disciple in his terrible experience, and made intercession for him, that his faith might not utterly fail.
It is well that we learn the need of divine help in the temptations of our lives. It is not enough to have the forms of religion – in the great crises of our experience, only Christ himself will suffice. It is said that Gainsborough, the artist, longed also to be a musician. He bought musical instruments of many kinds and tried to play them. He once heard a great violinist bringing ravishing music from his instrument. Gainsborough was charmed, and thrown into transports of admiration. He bought the violin on which the master had played so marvelously. He thought that if he only had the wonderful instrument he could play too. But he soon learned that the music was not in the violin, but was in the master who played it.
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