| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 5 |
Page 6 |
But is it just to our patient, gracious Master that we remain always children, and never grow into full stature? We glory in the sympathy of Christ with our infirmities, but is it worthy of us always to have the infirmities, and never to become any stronger? If he would have us accept his peace and learn the sweet lesson, is it worthy in us to go on living a life of fret, discontent, and anxiety, of uncontrolled temper and ungoverned moods? Should we not try at least to please our Master in all things, even though we may never be able to live a single whole day without displeasing him in some way? It is the sincere effort that he accepts. If he knows that we have done our best, he holds us blameless, though we are not faultless. But we should not take advantage of our Master’s sympathy with our infirmities to continue in imperfect living, and to keep the infirmities uncured, unstrengthened.
So let us keep the ideal unlowered – we dare not lower it. “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” stands ever as the unmovable mark and goal of Christian life. Christ’s patient sympathy with our failures and weaknesses never brings the standard down a single line to make it easier for us to reach it. There the ideal stands and we are bidden to climb to it. St. Paul confessed that he had not yet attained to the goal, but said he was striving to reach it, ever pushing upward with all his energy, earnestness, and bravery of should. Let us not in cowardly indolence live on for ever on life’s low levels – let us seek to climb to the heights. Let us set our feet a little higher every day, overcome some weakness, and gain some new height.
“Touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” We may not always find sympathy in human hearts. Even those who ought to be most patient with us may fail to understand us may prove exacting, severe, hard in judgment, harsh in blame, bitter in denunciation. But in the love of Christ we find infinite compassion, sympathy that never fails, never wearies. He remembers that we are dust. Only let us ever be true to him and always do our best, confessing our manifold failures, and going on continually to better things.
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