STRIFE by J. E. Kimble

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 40.

STRIFE.

By J. E. Kimble

BY J. E. KIMBLE.

THIS world is filled with struggles and contentions. A varying scale of strife is everywhere seen. The world seems one vast battle field, filled with enmity between man and God, and never-ending strife between man and man. Strife in the family, strife between neighbors, strife between great political bodies and nations, has made the world a wilderness and taken peace and quietude from the earth.

Back of all the strife of words and contentions of humanity lies strife in the heart (James 3:14), which simply means that man loves himself more than God and his fellow men. But God commands to "hate our own life," and to love our brother.

Strife in the family is perhaps the sorest evil in the world; for if strife no longer appeared in the household, it would disappear from the neighborhood and altogether from the world. In the family especially the peace and quiet and repose which are so eagerly desired in this world, ought to be realized. Here the lines along which the children are to travel through life are marked out for them. If strife were a thing unknown in the family, if the children were not inured to it from infancy, how soon would the world present a new phase! How sad a thing it is that in almost every family in the world there is spiritual strife, resulting in strife of words, ill feelings, bodily strife, wounds, sickness, the breaking up of families, death!

Now if the affections and thoughts ran in the same channel, if their spirits led in the same direction, lives would flow together as naturally as water. Why can it not be?

Ah, it can be! There is this possibility within the reach of every family in the world. It lies in the hearty acceptance of Christ and the practical application of his every word in the life and works. For strife and variance will come so long as self-indulgence is at all allowed. To deny self is the only hope for the world. Until two spirits agree in a common standard, there cannot be oneness.

It is a wonderment to many why there is more strife and ill feeling seen in Christian families at times than among the worldly minded. But there is legitimate reason for this. Every Christian who hungers and thirsts for righteousness knows that he is very imperfect. He is struggling to remodel his life and actions by the renewing of the mind and the renewing of his strength in God. The Spirit of God is striving with him. He cannot tolerate in himself what he once could. He cannot tolerate in his family what he once could. Among the worldly there is a corrupt harmony. None feels especially concerned. Wife and children tolerate the faults of the husband and father, and he tolerates and humors them. Quite commonly the lives show a great degree of harmony. But this kind of harmony is seen even among thieves and murderers. A common object is followed so intensely that their lives show almost perfect oneness. At other times and more commonly self seeks indulgence, the paths cross and recross, but they worry it through.

Now the Christian feels it an imperative duty to come up to the God-given and perfect standard. A thing which to the worldly is passed by unnoticed, looks large in his eyes, and gives acute pain. He must see all these wrong ways corrected in himself and his household. As the Spirit of God strives with him so he must strive; but not as a worldly man, not to please himself. It gave Jeremiah no pleasure to be "a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth." Some persons among professed Christians are more willing to tolerate faults than to strive against them. This is the significance of the word. "Strive to enter into the strait gate."

When self is all abolished, the Lord enthroned as father and king, and we accept the place of little children, and we eagerly follow our guide, Christ Jesus, the least crossing of his will becomes painful. Then will peace and quiet and fullness of joy and hope be experienced, and the grandest, loftiest expectations will finally be realized.

Jamaica, Vt.