p. 147 | If We Knew

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 29, 1883

"If We Knew."

And so, through this weary world we go, Bearing a burden of needless woe, Carrying hearts that are heavy and slow Under their load of care; When, oh! if we only, only knew, That God is tender, and strong, and true, And that he loves us through and through, Our hearts would be lighter than air!

I do not know who wrote the lines. I saw them first on a card sent from one Christian heart to another. I heard them again from the lips of a busy woman—a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, a teacher of other women in the Bible class, a helper in every good work that comes pressing upon women in these earnest days. She was never idle; she was always somewhat overworked; she was often very weary, and yet she seemed to carry a heart that was lighter than air; and she certainly did carry one that was "at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize."

The words were nothing new; a child might have fashioned their simple rhyme; yet they sang on and on through a day of burden and care, till the soul took courage and felt as if some fresh breeze had blown across it from the green pastures where the weary rest. And I began to question if really the burden of woe was not often a needless one. It is, surely, when we have brought it upon ourselves, by our sin or our mistakes. If the proper use of our own God-given powers would have averted the misery, then it was needless indeed. But not necessarily useless because needless; for, if it serves as a teacher and helps us to avoid similar failures in the future, the work of the "needless woe" is done.

But there is another sense in which we drag a burden of needless woe; i. e., when the woe would not be woe but for the sorrowful eyes through which we behold it. We see through a cloud; we darken our vision by our own shadows; we shut our eyes to the sun, and take a mournful comfort in pitying ourselves. If we subtract from our burdens those we bring upon ourselves, and which need never be burdens the second time, and those which are not trials at all, if met bravely, and turned around so that the sunlight smiles upon them, the sum of our human miseries will be greatly decreased. With both these classes of ills we have the power to battle, and the promise of God's help in the unequal fight. But there remain the sorrows tangible and real—the burdens never brought by our own hands; the woes that cannot be transformed by any hopeful fancy into blessings. Under these—the real arrows that rankle in our souls, the real weights under which we stagger—it is that the heart beats heavy and slow. And it is to meet these that we want the sure knowledge that "God is tender and strong and true."

All this he is. We "know" it vaguely; but experimentally, we do not know that his tenderness will soothe every wound, and that the sorer the hurt, the softer the touch of the Healer. We believe in his strength; but, if we trust ourselves to it, we cling to our burdens while we lean, and do not know how to cast our care on him. If he would take us, would he not surely take everything that troubles us? In giving himself to us he freely gives us of all that he has. In giving ourselves, why do we withhold what is ours? He makes us his children, and Christ shares with us his joy, his peace, his home; that "where he is, we may be also." He gives us freely of his riches of grace, and puts his everlasting arms under us, and we hug our trials to our hearts instead of laying them into his open hand. "If we only, only knew" how tender, strong, and faithful he is! and we can know at once by testing and trusting his love and strength and truth. No one ever tried them and found them wanting. They are enough to steady the soul in storms, to keep the heart from breaking in sorrow; nay more, to turn its sorrow into joy. To be sure that he loves us "through and through," that is, from the heights of our folly to the depths of our shame, from one end to the other of our weakness and sin, from our cradle on through every experience to the grave; aye, and through the dark valley into the land of many mansions—to know this, and to be glad in it, is a part of the Christian's heritage, the birthright of every child of God.—Methodist.