Abiding in Christ

“Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.”

We all have to learn the lessons of beautiful living. Life is a school, and God is continually setting new lessons for us. George MacDonald says: “Till a man has learned to be happy without the sunshine, and therein becomes capable of enjoying it perfectly, it is well that the sunshine and the shadow should be mingled, so as God only knows how to mingle them.”3 When we find ourselves facing some unpleasant duty, or in the presence of a new trial or sorrow, we should not forget that it is another opportunity to learn the lesson. If the lesson is hard, that just shows we need more practice. We must not be discouraged if cheerfulness does not come easily. We have to learn it, and it may take us a good while.

Abiding in Christ

To learn the lesson of cheerfulness, we must abide in Christ. “In me ye might have peace,” He says. We can never get true peace in any other way. If we are truly experiencing the friendship of Christ, we shall find the inner joy increasing even as the outer lights grow dim.

Here, again, human friendship helps us to understand the divine. You may walk with a friend for years in close, familiar relations, finding every day some new revealing of beauty. But as yet you have had only joy and prosperity. One day sorrow enters your life. In the new experience you find qualities in your friend’s love which you had never perceived before. It took suffering in you to bring out the rich expressions of sympathy, tenderness, and comfort which were all the while in reserve in his life.

The same is true of the divine love. We never can know its best things until we enter the shadows of sorrow. Our great Teacher said, “Blessed are they that mourn.”* This seems indeed a strange beatitude. But to those who have learned its meaning it is no longer strange. There are blessings, rich, deep, and satisfying, which we never can know until we mourn. You would never see the stars if the sun shone day and night. It would be a loss to anyone if he were to live his whole life and never once behold the night’s sky with its brilliant orbs. We can then say, “Blessed is the hour when the sun goes down and it grows dark, for then we see the glory of heaven’s stars.”

Mary G. Slocum writes:

“Across my day the shadows creeping Brought the unwelcome night; The distant hills, the last gleams keeping Of dear, familiar light, Slowly became a darkened wall around, and soon The world, with all its loved and wonted sights, was gone.

“Ah, light that made such sweet revealing, That showed this world so bright, You gave no hint you were concealing The greater wealth of night! For now, above and far beyond the hills, appear Ten thousand worlds I did not dream before were here.

“O day, for which I made such grieving— Though now more dear the night— May life not be like you, deceiving And blinding to my sight? As once the light hid all except this world from me, Is life obscuring by its glare eternity?”

The glare of human joy hides from our sight ten thousand blessings which we cannot see until it grows dark about us. And it would be a dire loss to live through all our days and never see these blessings. There are hundreds of expressions in God’s Word which seem pale and without much meaning in the time of earthly gladness, but which come out bright and shining like stars when darkness gathers round us. You had no need for divine comfort when you had no sorrow; and a great part of the Bible was as yet an unopened book to you, for a large portion of it consists of comfort for those in trouble. But when the sorrow came, the words flashed out like stars at night, unseen by day. Thus we learn the meaning of the beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn: for they shall be comforted.” We lose some joys, but we find others that were hidden in the light of those we lost. Where earth’s candles burned with only flickering light, heaven’s lamps now shine. Where the human face shone in its gentle grace, the face of Christ now looks upon us in its divine yearning. Where we leaned upon a human arm, often trembling, at last broken, we find now, instead, the Everlasting Arm. Thus when we abide in Christ the light of His love is revealed, as human joys pale. The deeper the earthly darkness, the richer are the divine comforts which are given to us, enabling us to be of good cheer whatever the tribulation.

Excerpt from Timeless Truths

Bible Teaching: R C Sproul : The Beatitudes Part 2