Untitled article by J. Q. Foy

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, August 20, 1867

CONTENTMENT.

By J. Q. Foy

HUMAN life, like the surface of the earth, is diversified, here a joy, and there a grief; now a calm, and then a storm. The bitter with the sweet is blended all through life's journey. Now we may be treading a flowery path; anon we meet with thorns and briers. To-day all is sunshine, and to our meager vision naught but happiness and prosperity appear; our cup of joy is running over. To-morrow, dark clouds of adversity may lower above us, and as full may be our cup of sorrow. To-day we are enjoying the society of dear friends; to-morrow they may be snatched from our embrace.

We might wish that it were otherwise. Yet in these the wisdom and goodness of God are manifest. Our life is but “a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away;” and were it all joy, satisfied with earth, we might cease to strive for Heaven; forgetful of our mortality, immortality might cease to be the object of our desires. Were it all trials and gloom, were there no rift in the cloud, we might faint beneath our burdens. Our all-wise and merciful Creator “knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust,” and like a tender parent takes us by the hand. That dear Saviour who died for us, knows how to sympathize with us. He is still able and willing to bear our griefs. He will not forsake us while we make him our portion. We may still hear him say, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

And yet in a sense is it true that life is what we make it. Brooding over our misfortunes, we may magnify mole hills into mountains, and in imagination sink beneath burdens never to be borne; even the sweet may be made bitter. But having the love of God as the mainspring of every action, making it our first business to glorify him, we may confidently hope that his gentle hand will buoy us above the waves of adversity, and be at peace, contented, assured that all will be well.

A contented mind is one of the greatest of blessings—a blessing which few possess, and yet one which it is the privilege of every one to enjoy. We read that “godliness with contentment is great gain,” and we may add, the two are inseparably connected. Without godliness we could not be really contented, were the world at our command. Were we in possession of the wealth of the Indies, and all the lore of ages; could we inscribe our name on the loftiest pinnacle of fame, and be held in admiration by the great of earth, yet without godliness, we are like a ship without ballast. The ambitious and worldly are ever discontented, ever aspiring after something beyond their reach, while the truly godly are contented in whatever lot may, in the providence of God, be assigned them. Then let us learn with the great apostle, in whatever state we are, therewith to be content.

J. Q. FOY.

Madison Co., N. Y.