A Chapter on Troubles

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Sep 8, 1863

A Chapter on Troubles.

“The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Psalm xvi, 6.

Reader, has it ever been your lot to feel the weight of your troubles press on you so heavily that, turning to these words you have felt them as a bitter mockery of your pain, impelling you to cry out that the “pleasant places,” in which you had to tread were dark paths of sorrow and privation, and your goodly heritage, one of want—the worst want—hunger of the soul. And feeling so, at such times, have you ever paused a moment, and pictured to yourself the poet-king as he wrote them?

No; for such grief as that, when indulged in, takes a form too selfish to admit of any thought but of our own troubles. And yet pondering on these words, and knowing what we know of David’s life, they suggest a lesson which, if read aright, would cause you to look up from the contemplation of your own sorrows, and, full of trials, of petty irritating annoyances, as your path might be, would yet make you echo the Psalmist’s words, that yours was “a goodly heritage.”

Think of the king a moment; first as a youth with a heart embittered by the cruel jealousy of Saul, lastly as an old man, pained by the rebellion of his child, and then follow me, while I try to explain to you what feeling made him, with all his troubles, acknowledge that “the lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places, yea, that he had a goodly heritage.”

It may seem a harsh way to bring comfort to sore hearts, and yet I think it was part of the secret of David’s contentment to acknowledge as a fact at starting, that worldly happiness is not the grand end or aim of life, that the Almighty in giving us this world, gave it us not to enjoy as a means of present happiness, but employ as a means of happiness to come; that the troubles we chafe at are sent not as punishments, but trials. For our weak natures from childhood upward rebel against punishment. But once look on all grief

and all suffering as trials—trials of our faith, our courage, and our strength—and we are enlisted as it were in a battle against ourselves, resolving to be tried and not found wanting. We see then, that sorrow is sent in order that our natures may be purified from their earthly clingings and yearnings, and brought to acknowledge that the purest love of earth, the most unalloyed happiness that we can taste here, are only types of eternal bliss, and that in the presence of our Maker only is there fulness of joy.

It is an old, old truth, that suffering bringeth strength; and when we question the teachings of sorrow, while we, with bursting hearts, tremblingly carp at the wisdom of our Father's dealings, it needs but a glance at the Bible to prove its truth, to show that the noblest characters were made strong by suffering.

Look at Jacob the beloved of God; his life was one long trial, a chain of misfortunes. And remember Jacob's reward was of no earthly nature. Then turn to Daniel. We cannot doubt, that the Lord loved him, and yet he was sorely afflicted and we hear of no evil act that he committed, that could make us view his sufferings as just chastisement at the hand of God.

I have not referred in this paper to the trouble of death, because that bears its own consolation. Neither have I spoken of troubles manifestly brought on by our own acts of wilfulness or passion. I speak only of those of which no earthly eyes can see the reason, of trials not of our making, and which in our inmost thoughts we say are not of our meriting—the troubles which almost against our will make us ask the “why.” There is but one answer, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Dear friends, take this to your hearts. To all those vain yearnings let the answer come clear and distinct,—Be still, weary one! Hush the murmurs, learn patiently and quietly life's great lesson—to endure. “Know that I am God; know that I, the All-merciful, the All-wise, the pitying Father have heard and answered thee, and in mine own good time will show thee the wherefore of all that so troubles thee now. I am God; let thy weakness rest on my strength; thy ignorance on my wisdom; thy longings on my everlasting love.”

With this assurance, with this knowledge of an ever-present refuge in time of trouble—can we wonder that David in the midst of all his sorrows could say: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage?”