| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 4 |
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There are no hard experiences to pass through; no sore struggles to endure in that happy land. There are no Gethsemanes in heaven, where amid strong crying and tears the child of God must lie and agonize as he accepts the cup which the Father puts into his hand. There the will of God is always joyous and the doing of it always brings delight. The angels fly swiftly on the errands on which they are sent, doing with equal alacrity the most stupendous thing and the smallest ministries. It is told in the Koran that Gabriel was once sent earthward to save King Solomon from the sin of pride, and at the same time to help a toiling, weary yellow ant to get home to her people with her load of food.
So it ever is in heaven – the will of God is done always with joy. It consists in happy activities, in joyous services. It is this heavenly standard that is set for our earthly living. The will of God, as it is done there, is always sweet – it is always a joy to do it. Evidently, therefore, the thought in our Lord’s mind, when he gave this prayer to his disciples, was not primarily the suffering and enduring of the will of God, but the obedience of common life.
True, this is not always easy. Our hearts do not incline us naturally to God’s will and ways. We are prone to wander from the divine commandments. It is not until we have a new heart that we begin to desire to do the will of God. A boy was greatly perplexed about the thought that heaven was so far away, and he wondered how anyone in this world could ever get there. His wise mother said to him, “Heaven must come down to you – heaven must first come into your heart.” This explains the whole mystery of the doing of God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. The heavenly life must come down first to us, into our heart; else we never can enter heaven. When we have heaven in us we begin to grow into God’s likeness, striving to do God’s will. Even then, however, it does not instantly become easy for us. It takes all of life to train and discipline our will into happy and joyous obedience.
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