Right Seeing
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"The Lord said to me—You have seen correctly." These were God's words to Jeremiah when he called him to his life-work as a "seer" or prophet to the people of Israel. God puts to the sincere, self-distrustful young man—the question, "What do you see, Jeremiah?" Jeremiah replies, "I see a branch of an almond tree." This is just what the Lord meant that he should see. The almond was a tree of rapid growth and early bloom; it typified speedy action. As the young Jew had shown his capacity for right discernment, the Lord commended his wise answer, and said to him, "You have seen correctly."
There is a right way and a wrong way of looking at almost everything. To a man who has no eye for beauty, an artistic masterpiece of a landscape, is merely so much paint on a linen canvas. To another, it is a masterpiece of golden sunlight bathing field and forest with its glory.
To many it was predicted that Christ, the Messiah, would be as "a root out of dry ground—having no form or loveliness. When they shall see Him—there is no beauty that they should desire Him. He will be despised and rejected by men." When He came, therefore, to His own people, they received Him not. As many as beheld Him rightly— received Him—to them gave He the privilege of becoming the children of God. He is to them the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely one. Christ never changes. The difference between the thoughtless sinner and the same person after he is converted, is—that he looks at Jesus with a new eye, and sees Him to be the very Savior that he needs!
Some people look at God only as a consuming fire—and are struck with despair. Others go to the opposite extreme, and see in Him nothing but pity and pardoning mercy; they easily slide off into Universalism. The man who magnifies God's mercy at the expense of His justice, and who does not believe that He will punish sin as it deserves, has not "seen correctly." He will be cured of his delusion on the Day of Judgment.
Those wise men at Westminster saw the Divine Being, our Heavenly Father, in the right proportions of His attributes when they framed that wonderful answer to that question in the Catechism, "What is God?"
In nothing are we all apt to make more terrible blunders, than in looking at God's providential dealings. Even some Christians have a heathenish habit of talking about "good luck" and "windfalls" and "bad fortune," and other expressions which convey the idea that this life is a mere game of chance! Blind unbelief may be expected to err, and to scan God's work as either a riddle or a muddle. But a Christian, who has had his eyes opened, ought to know better!
Yet how often do we all regard God's dealings in a wrong light—and call them by the wrong name! We frequently speak of certain things as "afflictions" when they are really "blessings in disguise!" We congratulate people on gaining what turns out to be a terrible snare, or worse than a loss! Quite as often we condole with them over a "bad circumstance" which is about to yield to them mercies more precious than gold!
Old Jacob probably thought that he was a fair subject for commiseration, on that evening when he sat moaning in his tent-door, "Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin! Everything is against me!" Genesis 42:36. But the caravan was just approaching which brought him Simeon and Benjamin, and glorious tidings about the long-lost Joseph! He had not "seen correctly" what sort of a God he was serving!
Let us hesitate before we condole with a brother who is under the chastisement of our loving Father in Heaven. Be careful how you condole with a man who has lost all his money—and saved his good name; or congratulate the man who has made a million—at the expense of his piety. When a Christian is toppled over from a "dizzy and dangerous height of prosperity"—and "brought down to poverty," he is brought down to Christ, the solid rock at the same time. In the valley of humiliation he has more of the joy of God's countenance, and wears more of the herb called "heart's-ease" in his bosom, than he ever did in the days of his giddy prosperity.
SICKNESS has often brought to a man spiritual recovery. SUFFERING has often wrought out for him an exceeding weight of glory. Personally, I have lately been led through a very shadowy pathway of trial; but it has never been so dark—that I could not see to read some precious promises which glowed like diamonds!
The adversary tries hard to break our lamp, and to steal our diamonds in those dark passage-ways of trial. We need good eyesight in such times of trouble, so as not to stumble, or to lose sight of the Comforter, or of the bright light which shines at the end of the way.
I have seen people tenderly condole a weeping mother whose godly child has flown away home to heaven. But they never thought of condoling another mother over a living child who was a frivolous slave of fashion, or a dissipated sensualist, or a wayward son, the "heartbreak of his mother." A hundred times over have I more pitied the parent of a living sorrow—than the parent of a departed joy. Spare your tears from the darlings who are safe in the arms of Jesus—and spend them over the living who are yet dead in sin and obstinate impenitence.
Let us learn to see things correctly—and call them by their right names! We too often drape our real blessings with a shroud—and decorate our dangerous temptations with garlands! The sharpest trials this nation ever knew—have turned into tender mercies.
Let us all pray fervently for spiritual discernment. Lord, open our eyes! Then we shall see this world to be a mere training-school for a better world; we shall see a Father's smile behind the darkest cloud; we shall see in duty done—our highest delight; and at the end of the conflict—we shall see the King in His beauty, and know Him even as we are known!
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