'The secret of a beautiful Christlike life
The secret of a beautiful Christlike life
There is a story of a young woman who was spending the day with a party of friends in the country, rambling through the woods and among the hills. Early in the morning she picked up a branch of sweetbrier and put it in her pocket. She soon forgot that it was there — but all day long, wherever she went, she smelled the sweet fragrance, wondering whence it came.
On every woodland path she found the same fragrance, though no sweetbrier was growing there. On bare fields and rocky knolls and in deep gorges, as the party strolled about — the air seemed laden with the sweet smell. The other members of the party had their handfuls of all sorts of wild flowers — but the one fragrance that filled the air for her, was sweetbrier. As the party went home on the boat, she thought, "Someone must have a bouquet of sweetbrier," not dreaming that it was she who had it.
Late at night, when she went to her room, there was the handful of sweetbrier tucked away in her dress, where she had put it in the morning and where unconsciously she had carried it all day. "How good it would be," she said to herself, as she closed her eyes, "if I could carry such a sweet spirit in my heart that everyone I meet would seem lovely!"
The incident suggests the secret of a beautiful Christlike life . We cannot find sweetness on every path our feet must press, in every place we are required to go. Sometimes we must be among uncongenial people — people whose lives are not gentle, who are unloving in disposition, with whom it is not easy to live cordially in close relations. Sometimes we must come into circumstances which do not minister to our comfort, in which we do not find joy, gladness, encouragement.
The only way to be sure of making a path of sweetness in all our course in life — is to carry the sweetness in our own heart and life. Then, on the bleakest roads, where not a flower blooms — we shall still walk in perfumed air, the perfume carried in our own heart.
It is thus that Christ would have us live. He does not promise to lead us always through scenes of beauty, along paths of joy; what He promises is to put the beauty and the joy into our own hearts and lives, so that we shall have cheer and blessing wherever we go.
Paul said that he had learned in whatever state he was, therein to be content. That is, he had in himself, in his own heart, through the grace of God and the love of Christ given to him — the resources for contentment, and was not dependent upon his condition or his circumstances.
Some people seem so happily constituted by nature, having such sunny spirits and such cheerful dispositions, that they cannot help being loving and sweet. How others who are not so gifted by nature, or who are in poor health, or have much to try them, can keep always sweet, unaffected by their condition, is the problem. But they can. The secret is to have the love of Christ hidden in their hearts. That will make any life sweet!
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