Job 6:7

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful meat." Job 6:7

Here we are called upon to recognise the astounding reverses which may take place in life. It would seem as if nothing were impossible in the way of human reverses. The most shocking events become commonplaces, and the things that are most dreaded force upon us their unwelcome familiarity. Sometimes such reverses are good for us. The dainty soul despises all common life, all democracy, all popular association, and prefers to live in dignified solitude or in luxurious ease. When such a soul is brought by poverty, or ill-health, or any other circumstance, to mingle with hitherto despised classes, not unfrequently those classes appear in a better light than when seen from a distance. Many a man has been forced to a better interpretation of society by the loss of position which gave him uniqueness and assured him a large measure of ease and comfort. We can only be fully trained to the highest life by being changed from one position to another, and by being compelled to associate with those who are supposed to be beneath us, and take part in service which has always been avoided as drudgery. The poor present many aspects which are far from inviting to the rich; yet when they are approached sympathetically even they can contribute a good deal towards the solid comfort and real progress of their nominal superiors. Even disease, which when viewed in the abstract is most repulsive and intolerable, may come to create a kind of companionship between itself and the sufferer, so that the sufferer may look to his disease for instruction, chastening, discipline, and many moral advantages. The Psalmist said: It was good for me that I was afflicted: before I was afflicted I went astray. He: did not value the affliction for its own sake, but for the sake of the things which it wrought out in the cultivation and perfecting of his character. Job did not accept the discipline with gratitude when he declared that the things which his soul once refused had become his meat; he did not forget to add the word "sorrowful"; so the text stands as we find it. Nor may we complain that Job did not at once reach the highest ideal of character, assimilating things evil in themselves, and accounting them as good; there must be a period of training: for who can be at once familiar with sorrow, or immediately excite his affections in the interests of distress and loss and pain? Keep in view the point, that we may suffer the most violent reverses in fortune, and be compelled altogether to change our tastes and affinities. We are not separated from any form of disease or sorrow by permanent boundaries: now we are on this side, and now we are on that, and oftentimes it would appear as if we had no control over our position or lot in life. One thing we can do; we can discourage the spirit of contempt in regard to those whose lot is heavy and bitter, and see in them what we ourselves may one day be: the very thinnest partition divides the richest man from the poorest: the strongest man may be dead tomorrow: one lightning flash, and the most herculean frame may be thrown into decrepitude and helplessness. So we must learn from one another, and understand that the highest and the lowest are related, and that exchange of position is always within the range of possibility, and may sometimes be necessary to the perfecting of our spiritual culture.