Nor, to be frank, is the life of a Christian altogether and perfectly joyful. "Even we ourselves do groan within ourselves," wrote Paul to the same church for which he prayed that the "God of hope would fill them with all peace and joy."
But the reason he groans is because he has only the first fruits of what is coming. He groans waiting for the redemption of the body, and the old nature still has power to hinder and to thwart him. What is new in him tends to happiness, the higher and holier part of him is all for joy; that is true of him in some degree which is observed of his Master (despite one apparent exception by the grave of Lazarus), that He is often said to have His soul troubled, but only once that He rejoiced in spirit. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
This kingdom, Jesus said, was at hand. And when His disciples were rejected, and shook off the dust of the city from their shoes, He bade them say, "Nevertheless, of this be ye sure, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."
And it is nigh unto us to-day. It is felt in the inmost soul even of those who would be ashamed to confess its presence.
Even when you are most miserably defeated in striving to be good, most ashamed of failure, even when (to return to our starting-point) you declare that you cannot do the thing that you would, even then you do not entirely believe yourself; the conviction of lofty possibilities will not quite begone; righteousness, and peace, and joy, still haunt your imaginings and disturb your guilty pleasures; you feel, you know, that these things are your heritage, and without them you can never be content.
What does this strange, illogical, incessant experience mean?
There is a beautiful old legend of a Christian girl, betrayed to martyrdom by her pagan lover in the bitterness of his rejection, who promised as she went to die to send him, if it were allowed to her, some proof of her religion. On that same wintry night, as he sat and mourned, the legend says that a fair boy left at his door a basket filled with flowers of such bloom and fragrance as never grew in earthly gardens. Whereupon he arose and confessed Christ, and passed through the same dusky gates of martyrdom to rejoin her in the paradise of God.
Like those flowers of unearthly growth, proclaiming the reality of the unseen, so do our unworldly longings, our immortal spiritual aspirings, our feeling after a Divine Deliverer, if haply we may find Him, prove that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Every thought of God comes from God, and is already the operation of His Spirit.
Every desire for Christ is Christ's forerunner in the soul, and bids us welcome Christ.