| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 5 |
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Money is to be regarded likewise as a trust – not our own, but our Master’s, to be used for Him in doing good to others. The same is true of all blessings that we receive. We dare not use any of them, even the smallest, for our own pleasure or comfort alone; if we do they cease to be blessings to us. Even the divine mercy, the greatest of all God’s gifts, which is granted so freely to every penitent, can become ours only on condition that we shall dispense it to others. When we ask to be forgiven we must pledge our Father that we will be forgiving. The forgiveness we receive is not for ourselves only, but is a trust to be used, to be given out again to others.
This is the law of all life. Everything that is put into our hands, from the tiniest flower that blooms in our window to the infinite gift of eternal life, is entrusted to us that we may share its beauty or its benefit with those about us. It is bestowed upon us, not as a treasure to be appropriated, but as a blessing to be dispensed. To try to keep it altogether for ourselves is to lose it; we can make its blessing really our own only by holding it and using it for the good of others.
Suffering in every form comes under the same law. It is a trust from God. It may have, and doubtless has, its peculiar meaning for us. But we must listen for its message in order that we may speak it out again so that others may hear it. It brings in its dark folds some gift of God expressly for us, but not for us to hold selfishly or to absorb in our own life. Whatever is spoken to us in the darkness of sorrow, we are to speak out in the light. What we hear in the ear as we listen in the hour of grief or pain, we are to proclaim upon the house tops. What is revealed to us in the darkened room, when the curtains are drawn, we must go and tell others in their hours of need and trial. In all trouble we are stewards of the mysteries of God.
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