| Garden of the Heart |
Chapter 10 |
Page 6 |
The problem of Christian living is not to avoid temptation, not to escape enmity, injustice, wrong, but in all our experiences, even when evil surges about us like a flood, to keep our hearts pure, warm, true, and loving. There are some people who are called to endure unkindness and unlovingness perpetually. They cannot change their condition. Even in their own home the atmosphere is unfriendly. Things that tend to embitter them are always present. They are unfairly and unjustly treated. Harsh words are ever falling upon their ears. How can they endure all this wrong, this injustice, this unfairness, and not be harmed by it? The answer is that they are safe and unhurt so long as they keep love in their hearts.
Love was Christ’s refuge in all the hatred and bitterness that swept like sea waves about Him. He loved on in spite of all reviling and persecution, all denying and betraying. If He had once lost His patience, or grown resentful, or become provoked, His life would have been stained. It was so in all His temptations. Satan brought his suggestions of evil to the heart and mind of Jesus, but Jesus gave them no hospitality, and they left His soul unharmed. We have the same refuge. We cannot keep the evil from flying about us, whispering in our ears, alighting at our heart’s windows, but we can keep it from soiling our souls. When we are wronged by others it is easy to sin by giving way to bitterness, but we can keep ourselves from the evil by keeping ourselves in love, by refusing to be angered, or to allow our hearts to entertain any bitter feeling.
Jesus prayed His Father to keep His disciples from the evil of the world. It is the will of the Father in every case to answer this prayer. He desires us always to be kept from evil. He permits temptations to come to us, for in no other way can we be made strong, but He never means us to yield to them. He intends that we shall resist, and when we resist a temptation it flees and leaves no harm upon us.
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