A LITTLE while ago, I traveled by train to London with a friend. We had not met for two or three years until that day, and during the interval we had each passed through heavy sorrow. Each of us had known the agony of standing by the death-bed of a beloved one, and of listening for the last time to the “dear familiar voice.” We talked much of the incidents connected with those closing scenes, tears filling our eyes, and yet not “without hope,” for we were quite sure that, in each case, the object of our love had trusted in Jesus as Saviour, and had gone to be “forever with the Lord.”
When we reached Victoria Station, I had to wait more than half an hour before another train was due, which would take me on to my destination. My friend and I would then have to part. She decided to remain with me during the waiting time, and as each of us felt more disposed to walk than to sit down, we paced backwards and forwards along the busy platform, arm-in-arm, in close conversation, quite unheeding the many who passed us.
We had spoken of the illness of each of our departed loved ones, and of their present joy, and now our thoughts turned to the blessed prospect of reunion with them. We quoted various passages of Scripture, and dwelt with delight on the precious words of comfort at the end of the fourth chapter of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. We both felt their power, and our hearts were thrilled as we looked forward to the moment when the “dead in Christ shall rise first,” and we shall be “caught up together with them, to meet the Lord in the air.”
Suddenly my friend stopped, looked me full in the face, her own flushing with emotion, and said, “Is it not mean, absolutely mean of us to be talking so much of the joy of meeting our dear ones when we ought to be thinking and speaking much more of the joy of meeting the Lord? We should have had no blessing at all if Christ had not died for us. They would not have been saved if He had not died for them. Oh! I feel ashamed of myself, for indeed it is mean to be thinking so much of the blessings He has obtained for us by His death, and yet to care so little for Himself.”
These words have rung in my ears more or less ever since. My train came up in a few minutes, we said good-bye, and perhaps may never meet again on earth, but she certainly read me a lesson which I hope to remember. In the small things of life, as well as in the great ones, how apt we are to take the daily gifts of God, and thank Him, it may be, for them, while our hearts are very cold towards Him who is the Giver. Blessed is the Christian’s portion here, even in the midst of trial, but “very far better” it is to be “with the Lord.” Sweet is the hope of meeting again the loved ones who have “gone before,” but may we, who are bought with the precious blood of Christ, look forward to seeing Him as the great and crowning joy before us, that we may not be so “mean” as to think more of seeing our dear ones in glory than of seeing the Lord Himself. We do look on with intense longing to the time when we, and our loved relatives and friends who have left us, shall “meet to part no more,” but let us have our hearts so fixed on the Lord Himself that everything shall be in its proper place — the hope of His coming first, and other affections and enjoyments only secondary. Our hearts are very subtle — they easily make idols — and there is often a danger where least suspected. Let us, then, be ever on our guard, that He may reign there in the supreme way to which He is entitled, “That in all things He might have the pre-eminence.” (Col. 1:1818And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18).) H. L. T.