Living Victoriously
by J. R. Miller
Life is conflict. Every good thing lies beyond a battlefield—and we
must fight our way to it. There must be struggle to get it. This is
true in physical life; from infancy to old age existence is a fight
with infirmity and disease. In mental life the same is true.
Education is a long conflict; the powers of the mind have to fight their way
to strength and development. So it is in spiritual life; enemies
throng the path, and contest every step of progress. No one ever attains to
beauty and nobleness of character, but through long and sore
struggle. Many of earth's great historic battlefields are now spots of quiet
peace. Once men met there in deadly strife—weapons clashed, cannons
thundered, the air was filled with the shouts of contending armies and the
groans of the wounded and dying, and the ground was covered with the dead.
But now, in summer days, the grass waves on the once bloody field, sweet
flowers bloom, children play, and the air is full of bird-songs and the
voices of peace. But he who walks over the spot is continually reminded of
the terrible struggle which occurred there in the bygone days.
We look upon men and women who have attained high culture
of mind and spirit. They are intelligent and educated; they are well
balanced in their faculties and symmetrical in their development; their
character is strong and noble, showing all the features which belong to true
manhood or true womanhood; they are dignified in their deportment, calm and
equable in their bearing; they are not hasty in speech nor impetuous in
temper; their judgments are never rash; they possess the qualities of
patience, contentment and gentleness; combined with courage, righteousness
and strength. When we look upon such people, we cannot but admire them and
be fascinated by the culture and the majesty and serenity
of their lives. We are apt to think of them as highly favored in
their original endowment and in their circumstances and experiences. But if
we knew the story of these lives, we would see that where now we behold such
ripe and beautiful character—was once a battlefield!
These men and women began just as all of us must
begin—with their faculties undeveloped, their powers undisciplined and their
lives uncultured. They had their hard battles with evil in themselves and
with evil around them. They grew into intelligence through long and severe
mental training and years of diligent study. They attained their splendid
self-control through painful experiences of conflict with their tongues,
their tempers, their impetuosity, their many innate propensities to evil.
Their beauty of Christian character, they reached through the submission of
their own wills to the will of Christ; and of their selfishness and natural
resentment and other evil affections and passions—to the sway of the spirit
of divine love.
They were not always what now they are. This noble beauty
which we so admire, is the fruit of long years of sore struggle, the harvest
which has been brought to ripeness by the frosts of autumn, the snows
and storms of winter, and the rains and sunshine of spring. In
back of the calmness, the refinement, the strength and the charming culture
which we see—is a story of conflict, with many a defeat and many a
wounding, and of stern self-discipline, with pain, toil and tears.
We all admire the character of John as it is drawn
for us in the New Testament. It seems almost perfect in its
affectionateness, its gentleness, its peacefulness. Yet John was not always
the saintly man of the Gospel. There is no doubt that he attained this
beauty of character, under the transforming influence of Christ's
love—through just such sore conflict and self-discipline, as all of us must
endure to attain Christlikeness. A writer compares the character of this
man of love—to an extinct volcano he had visited. Where once the crater
yawned—there is now a verdurous cuplike hollow on the mountain summit; where
once the fierce fires had burned—lies now a still, clear pool of water,
looking up like an eye to the beautiful heavens above, its banks covered
with sweet flowers. Says Dr. Culross, speaking of the beloved apostle and
referring to this old crater now so beautiful: "It is an apt parable of this
man. Naturally and originally volcanic, capable of profoundest passion and
daring—he is new-made by grace, until in his old age he stands out in calm
grandeur of character and depth and largeness of soul, with all the
gentlenesses and graces of Christ adorning him—a man, as I image him to
myself, with a face so noble that kings might do him homage, and so
sweet that children would run to him for his blessing."
So we learn the story of all noble, cultured character.
It is reached only through struggle; it is not natural—but is the fruit of
toil and conquest; it bears the marks and scars of many a conflict. We often
hear people say they would give large sums to have such a person's
contentment, or self-control, or sweetness of disposition, or submissiveness
to God's will, or power of giving sympathy. These are things which cannot be
bought and that cannot be learned in any school. Such qualities can be
gotten only through victorious struggle, during years of experience.
We say that Christ gives his disciples this spiritual
loveliness, that he renews their natures and transforms their lives,
imprinting his own image upon them. This is true; if it were not, there
could never be any hope of saintliness in any human life. Yet Christ does
not produce this change in us merely by instantaneously printing his
likeness upon our souls—as the photographer prints one's picture on the lens
in his camera. He works in us—but we must work out the beauty
which he puts in germ form, into our hearts. He helps us in every struggle,
yet still we must struggle. He never fights the battle for us,
although he is ever near to help us. Thus the noble things of
spiritual attainment, lie away beyond the hills and the rivers—and we must
toil far through strife and pain—before we can get them. The old life must
be crucified—that the new life may emerge.
The duty of life is to be victorious. Every good
thing, every noble thing, must be won. Heaven is for those who
overcome; not to overcome is to fail. In war, to be defeated is to
become a slave. To be vanquished in the battle with sin—is to become sin's
slave. To be overcome by the antagonisms of life—is to lose all. But in the
Christian life, defeat is never a necessity. Over all the ills and
enmities of this world—we may be victorious! Moreover, every
Christian life ought to be victorious. Jesus said, "In the world you shall
have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Nothing
will do for a gospel for sinners, which leaves any enmity unconquered, or
any foe unvanquished.
Paul, in speaking of the trials and sufferings which
beset the Christian—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness,
sword—asked, "Shall these separate us from the love of Christ?" That is,
"Can these evils and antagonisms ever be so great that we cannot overcome
them and be carried still in Christ's bosom?" He answers his own question by
saying triumphantly, "Nay! In all these things we are more than conquerors,
through him that loved us!" We need never be defeated; we may always be
victorious. We may be even "more than conquerors", triumphant,
exultant conquerors.
"Whoever is born of God, overcomes the world; and this is
the victory which overcomes the world—even our faith." The ideal Christian
life is one, therefore, which is victorious over all enmity, opposition,
difficulty and suffering. This is the standard which we should all
set for ourselves; this is the pattern shown us in the holy mount,
after which we should seek always to fashion our life. We need never expect
to find a path running along on a smooth plain, amid sweet flowers, beneath
the shade of the trees. "Does the road wind uphill all the way?"
"Yes, to the end." "Will the day's journey take the whole long day?" "From
morn to night, my friend."
Of course there will be Elims in the long
wilderness way, for God is very loving—but the road will always be
steep and hard. Yet there will never come an experience, in which
it will right for us to be defeated. Grace has lost none of its power since
New Testament days. Surely the poor stumbling life so many of us
live—is not the best possible living for us, if we are true Christians. Our
Master is able to help us to something far better.
Take temper, the control of the emotion of anger,
the government of the tongue. Is there any real reason, any fatal necessity,
why we should always be easily provoked, swept away by every slight cause
into inappropriate passion and into unchristian speech? No doubt Scripture
is true to experience, when it affirms that the taming of the tongue, is
harder than the taming of any kind of beast or bird or serpent. No doubt the
control of the tongue is the hardest victory to be achieved in all the range
of self-discipline, for Scripture affirms that the man who has gotten the
complete victory over his speech, is a perfectly disciplined man, "able also
to bridle the whole body." Yet victory even here is not impossible. The
grace of God is sufficient to enable us to live sweetly amid all provocation
and irritation, to check all feelings of resentment, to give the soft answer
which will turn away wrath, and to choke back all rising bitterness before
it shall break forth into a storm of passion. Jesus never lost his temper
nor spoke unadvisedly—and he is able to help us to live in the same
victorious way.
This is the ideal life for a child of God. We may be
more than conquerors. It is not an easy conquest which we may win
in a day; in many lives it must be the work of years. Still, it is possible,
with Christ's help; and we should never relax our diligence nor withdraw
from the battle—until we are victorious. He who in the strength of Christ
has acquired this power of self-control, has reached a sublime rank in
spiritual culture. The world may sneer at the man who bears injury and wrong
without resentment, without anger—but in God's eyes he is a spiritual hero.
Take trial of any kind—pain, misfortune, sorrow.
Is it possible to live victoriously at this point of human experience? Many
fail to do so; they succumb to every trial and are overwhelmed by every wave
of grief or loss. Many do not make any effort to resist; the faith of their
creed, of their hymns, of their prayers—forsakes them, and they meet their
troubles apparently as unsupported and unsustained as if they were not
Christians at all!
A novelist describes one in grief as he stands on the
shore and gazes at the ship that is bearing away from him, the object of his
heart's devotion. In his absorbing anguish he does not observe that the tide
is rising. It rolls over his feet—but he is unconscious of it. Higher and
higher the waters rise—now to his knees, now to his loins, now to his
breast. But all his thought is on the receding ship, and he is oblivious to
the swelling of the waves, and at length they flow over his head and he is
swept down to death. This is a picture of many of earth's sufferers, in
sorrow or in misfortune. They are defeated and overborne; the divine
promises do not sustain them, because they lose all faith; they hear the
words, "Do not sorrow—as others who have no hope." And yet they do
sorrow—just as if they had no hope!
But this is not the best that our religion can do for us.
It is designed to give us complete victory in all trial. "As sorrowing—yet
always rejoicing" is the scriptural ideal for a Christian life. Christ has
bequeathed his own peace to his believing ones. We know what his peace was;
it was never broken for a moment, though his sorrows and sufferings
surpassed in bitterness, anything this earth has ever known in any other
sufferer. This same peace, he offers to each one of his people in all trial.
The artist painted life as a sea—wild, swept by storms,
covered with wrecks. In the midst of this troubled scene, he painted a great
rock rising out of the waves—and in the rock, above the reach of the
billows, was a cleft with herbage growing and flowers
blooming; and in the midst of the herbage and the flowers—a dove
sitting quietly on her nest. It is a picture of the Christian's heritage of
peace, in times of tribulation. It is thus Christ would have us live in the
world—in the midst of the sorest trials and adversities, always victorious,
always at peace.
The secret of this victoriousness, is faith—faith in the
unchanging love of God, faith in the unfailing grace and
help of Christ, faith in the immutable divine promises. If we but
believe God and go forward ever resolute and unfaltering in duty—we shall
always be more than conquerors!