Heavenly wisdom helps us distinguish between the temporary and the permanent. For example, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:5). “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). The saint’s pain is temporary; his gain is permanent.
My grandfather’s younger brother, Dick, was a successful businessman; he sat on the police commission; he was mayor of our city; several Prime Ministers had dinner at his home by the lake; he received the Queen on one of her state visits. But it wasn’t always like that.
He was raised in a large, working-class family. When just a boy, unknown to his parents, Dick began horse trading. He found he could buy horseflesh in Toronto (a ferry ride away) more cheaply than in St. Catharines. Little by little, with his marginal profits, he purchased better and better animals until he brought home a fine looking, high-spirited creature–that went mad on him. The local detective, “Flat-foot” McGee, had to shoot his profits through the head.
During the Depression, he worked as a delivery boy in my grandfather’s grocery store. In those days the grocery list was picked up, filled, and delivered to the customer’s house. But Dick couldn’t stand waiting for the woman of the house as she wondered what else she might need. So he memorized every item in the store and would recite it as a checklist for her. He could repeat that list, word perfect, fifty years later.
It wasn’t long, however, until he was on his own. He bought some real estate, had a warehouse–which burned to the ground. What to do? Quit? No, these failures were only temporary. He became an auctioneer, started a rental business, and who knows what else. He didn’t think hope died until you did.
My uncle often quoted this anonymous poem:
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must-but don’t you quit!
Life is strange with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow-
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out-
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Our Lord teaches us that in the life of the believer it’s never quitting time. How grateful I am for His own testimony: “He shall not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa. 42:4). If He isn’t discouraged, why should I be?
When Israel was far from home, enslaved in Egypt, Jehovah didn’t give up on them (though they often gave up on Him). He was prepared to do whatever it took to win His people’s hearts. He actually lived among them in a tent for nearly 500 years! But in the days of Eli, the people thought of
His golden throne, the Mercy Seat, merely as a lucky charm in battle. Later, in the days of Saul, the ark languished in Beth-shemesh. When David became king, he said it was not right that God should be living in a tent. He prepared for a temple, and Solomon built it. What a magnificent structure! How permanent it looked! But it too was only a tentative arrangement.
Today Gods dwells on earth, amazingly, in these tents of our earthly sojourn (1 Cor. 6:19) and “we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened” (2 Cor. 5:4). But that, too is only temporary: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1).
Meanwhile, keep keeping on in the pilgrim way!