"The Lord went before them by night in a pillar of fire."
"I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide
him and restore comfort to him."—Isaiah 57:18.
"Your shoes shall be iron and brass; and as your days, so shall your
strength be."—Deut. 33:25.
Both these verses take us to the desert of AFFLICTION
under the canopy of its starless night.
The first consists, if I may so describe it, of a
fourfold flash from the Pillar of Fire in the environing darkness—a fourfold
promise with its graduated scale of consolation. God "sees" us, then He
"heals" us, then He "leads" us; then, as the climax, He "comforts" the
smitten heart.
It is He alone who does all this. His is the seeing,
loving, sympathetic eye; His the healing touch, His the leading, guiding
hand, His the restoring solaces. We may recall words of exquisite
tenderness—parental love, in another similar voice from the Pillar, recorded
in Jeremiah, where the Divine Speaker thus describes His dealings with His
people in the wilderness (and they are a true emblem of His dealings with
His afflicted Israel still). "In the day that I took them by the hand
(like a father) to bring them out of the land of Egypt" (Jer. 31:32).
In the other verse—a verse more especially associated
with the mystic column of the Exodus, (it forms one of the farewell
utterances of the leader of the chosen race)—there is conveyed a lesson of
trust for the future. The "Israel of God," in the most comprehensive sense
of the term, are exhorted, resolutely and bravely, to hold on their desert
journey, with all its privations—wind-storm, hurricane, blinding sand
driving in their faces, sharp stones bruising their weary feet. But He who
sends their trials gives them pilgrim-garb and pilgrim-sandals specially
suited for the roughest, thorniest, most rugged road: "Your shoes shall be
iron and brass."
And then, if the future—that unknown, unrevealed
future—obtrudes itself with trembling apprehensions, the fear of fearful
things, strength is promised equal to the day: "As your days, so shall your
strength be." The "marching orders" of the past are still addressed to the
caravan of mourners in every age. "Speak unto the children of Israel that
they go forward." There is no time for lingering: camping in
these "tents of Kedar." The wilderness way must be trodden. "Not" as an old
writer has it, "are they to be carried, but with staff in hand to plod on as
best they may." In the very effort of bearing tribulations, facing
difficulties, and confronting duty, grace will be given.
It is indeed no small part of trial, especially after a
lacerating bereavement, when the tendrils of the heart are wrenched from
creature props, to face the world again; to encounter the old engagements;
to toil through the old imperious mechanical drudgeries and grapple with the
conventional commonplaces of life. But anything is better than becoming a
prey to morbid feeling and querulous inaction. There is a Divine panacea in
work. I was recently struck with this passage in a life of the greatest of
the many great proconsuls of India, and a Christian besides, on hearing of
the saddest of personal sorrows. It reminds us of what Tacitus relates of
Agricola. "He wrote a line to his private secretary begging for work, no
matter what kind." In another Biography of the day—these are the words of
one as eminent in literature as the other was in statesmanship—"The troubles
of labor" (sending a message to a friend in deep sorrow) "are God's most
bountiful mercies on such occasions. Prayers and labor are the only
consolations." Or, as this has been translated into verse, with a wise
philosophy, by George Macdonald—
"Weep, if you will, but weep not all too long,
Or weep and work, for work will lead to song."
Elijah was miserable away from former activities, as he
sat moping under his desert juniper tree, or crouched within the cave of
Sinai. "Go, return on your way to the wilderness," was God's bracing command
and antidote; and his crushed spirit revived. The solitudes of Horeb were
left; the moodiness of the lonely life was exorcized in the resumption of
the ministries of Jezreel and Carmel.
Mourner, go also your way under the shelter of the
twofold saying—the twofold gleam of the Pillar-God's promised presence,
and God's promised strength. Not aiming at getting the better of
your trial—dulling it by some false opiate; but becoming the better for
it, by grasping anew the pilgrim staff, and with girded loins pursuing your
appointed way. Even if the darkness be gradually deepening, the fiery pillar
is gradually brightening. It is a question of divine counterpoise and
proportion. Strength adequate—more than adequate—for all emergencies.
As you are tempted at times to travel onwards with
drooping head and faltering step, let the watchword of the primitive
believers in their hours of "suffering affliction" be heard—"To heaven with
your hearts". Let your response, like theirs, be—"We have raised them to the
Lord!"
"Duty's path may thorny be,
Steep may be her climbing;
But upon her hill-top free,
Sabbath bells are chiming."
Depend upon it—the day will come when His gentle, tender
dealing will be owned and manifested—gracious illuminations from the flaming
cloud. Standing on the other side of the river, with the wilderness
discipline forever ended, you will then have no memory but this—"Your right
hand has held me up, and Your gentleness (or, as that has been rendered—Your
loving correction) has made me great" (Psalm 18:35).
One thing we must bear in mind. As the Pillar of old was
(we may believe) gradually lighted, gradually revealing its
glory at the vanishing of day, so it may be, and doubtless will be, with
you. Do not expect a sudden or miraculous illumination. The Great Physician,
as in the first of our motto-verses, bids you wait His time, "I will
(leaving the period indefinite) heal him, and restore to him comforts." They
are only strangely unskilled in trial—the sanctities of bereavement—who
would expect and exact the suddenness of an unnatural submission, and
harshly forbid the heart its season of sorrow.
Nature, in her great yearly parable, teaches the true
lesson. The seed of the flower has a slow, long battle with the overlying
earth before its petals nestle under the blue sky and are bathed in the
sunlight. Often the more beautiful the blossom the greater is the struggle.
But the battle is at last won. "The winter is past, the rain is over and
gone, the flowers appear on the earth" (Cant. 2:12). So let us trust God
that in due time—His own time—strength will be made perfect in
weakness. The law in the material and spiritual world is the same, "out of
weakness made strong." "For this cause we faint not," is the gradual
experience of the weary, burdened pilgrim of sorrow, "for though the outward
man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).
Meanwhile God will take His own way with us, not ours.
Sometimes He will say in His succouring love, as He disappoints our fears
and more than realizes our hopes, "I removed his shoulder from the burden"
(Psalm 81:6). At other times he keeps the burden on: it may even be for a
time adds to it, and then He either takes it off, or gives us augmented
strength to bear.
Happy those who can tell, as their experience and
resolve—
"I come not to avoid my care;
I come not to desert the strife;
I come to seek new strength to bear;
I fly to find new power for life.
"When noontide brings its work to all,
I find my task so hard to be
That I would sink, did You not call,
My strength is perfected in Thee."
Let us only reliantly lean upon Him in the extremity of
our weakness; not "discouraged because of the way." He will not reproach us
for our feeble pulse-beats, when with plans crossed and purposes thwarted,
and deepest clouds lowering, we pass through the Valley of Baca. He will not
deal harshly with us if at first it be only with lisping, stammering tongue
and bated breath we say, "Your will be done."
Yet, also, observe, His word is conditional on
patient continuance in well doing—"Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and
He shall strengthen your heart" (Psalm 27:14). Be very sure that He has some
great end in this trial. Seek that it may make you holier, humbler, more
gentle, more submissive. Let His dealings serve to quicken your footsteps to
the true Land of promise, until, the fiery pillar ceasing, the fiery chariot
descends to bear you up to reunions that never can be dissolved.
O gracious Healer, Up-binder, Leader, Consoler, come in
all the plenitude of Your pledged love and faithfulness! Enkindle this
flaming Column in my present darkness. Put in my hand the staff of
unwavering trust. Give me the sandals specially fitted for the bleeding
feet; so that my experience may be that of the mighty host of sufferers who
have trodden the same path, "They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary
way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted
in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered
them out of their distresses" (Psalm 107:4, 5, 6).
If we seek to do our duty in "the daily round, the common
task," glorifying God in the season of solemn adversity, He will meet us
half-way. "He meets him that rejoices and works righteousness, those who
remember You in Your ways" (Isaiah 64:5). "I am the Almighty God" was
the Divine watchword to the earliest of the Bible's Pilgrim Fathers—GOD,
ALL-SUFFICIENT. We have heard of the Wady Mukatteb, in the Arabian
Peninsula, with its "written rocks,"—the strange hieroglyphics of later
pilgrims in the track of the Israelites. Reader, in closing this meditation,
lift your eye to a great monolyth in the wilderness of affliction. Let the
gleam of the fiery pillar fall on its letterings. It is an inscription
applicable to all varying seasons and phases of trial—"As your days, so
shall your strength be."