“Oh, how mistaken people are who think one has nothing to do but take it easy and enjoy oneself! If they only knew! Still, I am wicked to grumble so! These little ‘thorns in the flesh’ are nothing compared with what so many have to bear. This morning I was ready to break down and have a real hearty cry, a thing I do not often indulge in. I had no opportunity just then. I took up at random a back number of the ‘G. O. P.’ and opened it at the ‘Twilight Talk.’ It seemed just meant for me. There was an extract from the letter of a girl who seemed to have my feelings exactly, and her words did help me so. I hope you will never give up writing to us whilst you are able to do so. I pray for you and for all our ‘Twilight Circle,’ and that we may all, both you and me, gain more and more blessing from our monthly meetings.”... “I do so want to make a fresh start and try to overcome my temptations. It is so nice to know that you are praying for us—for me. May the dear Lord bless you exceeding abundantly with the blessing that maketh rich and addeth no sorrow to it, is the prayer of ‘One of your most loving girls.’”
You will all, I am sure, understand, that in giving abstracts from such letters, I am anxious for every member of our “Twilight Circle” to share a great pleasure with me. That our talks should have been so largely blessed, and that the interest taken in them is continually deepening and extending, is a matter which concerns each of us. We must all benefit by being permitted to read each other’s hearts and knowing that we are not alone in our experiences, whether of joy or sorrow.
It is wonderful how two or three words often stir us to sympathy and incline us to confidence. Here is an instance from the letter of one who had lately known a great sorrow.
“Last month I was feeling so miserable when my paper arrived; and somehow I felt better after reading that kind remark you made about someone who told you she was a ‘motherless bairn.’ I have lost my mother too, and have not yet got used to being without her. You will understand how dreary everything seems sometimes; but when I read the ‘Twilight Talks,’ it makes me feel that there is still something left to live for. My life seems very poor and mean when judged by your standard, and it is very hard to reach, and sometimes seems a hopeless task.”
I pause here to say that the standard I strive to place before you, beloved ones, and myself, being God’s standard, as shown to us in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, makes all our lives seem poor and mean—none more so than my own. Thanks be to God! He has taught me by His Spirit to look from my own weakness to His strength, from my sinfulness to Him, in whom I believe, and “Who bare my sins in His own body on the tree”; from my poor efforts after holiness, which are too often only a record of failures, to the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is the precious heritage of all who trust in His sacrifice alone for salvation.
We must not give up striving, or lose courage by looking too much at ourselves. We must look up to Christ, and, though we have sorely lagged behind in our attempts to follow Him, and met with many disappointments by the way, we must still keep on. We must endeavour to imitate the Christ-life, but trusting the while in the sweet assurance that “He became sin (or a sin-offering) for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Looking at self, we despair. Turning from self to Christ, we find that He has fulfilled the whole law, and that, believing in His finished work, we are “justified by faith and have peace with God.” Yet, even when we do realise what Christ has done, how dissatisfied we are with our own poor efforts to show that we love and want to be like Him! Everything in Him is so grandly perfect, and so many littlenesses creep into our best efforts that we are ashamed to look at them.
A dear correspondent gives us a picture which many of us will own to be a reflection of our own feelings.
“I am one of His weak ones, yet longing to live the life that shall glorify Him most. The thing that grieves me so is that I have so little love in my heart towards Him. It is not strong as it ought to be; but Jesus is so precious to me that I want above all things to lead others to Him, that they may know what a Saviour He is!”
Happy girl! To be able to see so much in Christ, so little in self! It is the dissatisfied disciples who cannot be contented to follow their Master “afar off.” They must be ever praying and striving after a closer union with and greater likeness to their Lord. If one of you should write and say, “I am quite satisfied with myself, I am doing the best I can, and I am sure nobody can find fault with me,” I should be very, very sorry for her.