Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Suffering:
- W.R. Maltby:
- We suffer as a
member of the human family
- the following excerpt is taken from Dr. Maltby's work, Jesus Christ and The Meaning
of Life.
God has done two things for us in which we ought to rejoice, even if it
be with trembling.
First, he has given us our moral freedom, and thereby made it possible
for us to be his children, not his machines, nor his babies, nor his slaves. Next, he has
put us in a great family and made us members of one another.
It might help us to understand a little better what this means, if for a
moment, we imagine that before we entered this world, God had given us the chance of
another.
Suppose that by his angel he said to us:
"See! Here are two worlds. Choose which you will enter. If you
enter the one, you shall neither be helped nor hurt by anyone's deeds or misdeeds, save
your own. You shall carry your own burden but no other, and have your own joy, but no
other; and nothing that men call undeserved shall ever come to you. But if you enter this
other, you come into a family that is in trouble, and you must share the family trouble,
and your joy must be the family joy. You shall reap in joy and sorrow where others have
sown. You are promised no immunity from the consequences of other people's sins, neglects,
and ignorances, nor they from yours. Only this you may have: that God also has chosen
to be of this family, and he is always to be found there."
If we can imagine such an option being offered to us, can we doubt what our choice would
be? But if so, then all our complaining that we get more than "our share" of
trouble, or less than "our share" of something else, is really complaining
against the very conditions that we suppose ourselves to have approved.
- And it means that we are looking for our happiness where
God tells us it is to be found. Our Lord's blessedness was not, and ours is not, to be
found in any private comforts or congenialities, or in escape from the family
entanglement, but in laying ourselves open to the world's need and giving ourselves in
love and service, remembering that we are dealing with the children of God.
All this rests on the faith which Christ himself has inspired, that
there is something essentially lovable in all men, and our part is to honor all men, even
those who do not honor themselves or us, and to raise all human relationships to their
highest meaning, even when that meaning is ignored by those with whom we have to do.
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