Post 6: Figures of the True

I wish I could show you the picture that accompanies this short meditation by Amy Carmichael. If you have ever been in Switzerland, it should be easy to imagine: picture yourself standing in bright sunlight on a steep hillside dotted with pines that cast their shadow on over the ground. Looking across the valley, ragged mountain peaks rise up between the clouds that cover the valley.

Now listen to what Amy saw in the scene:

I see in this valley and mountain a general view of our years. We stand, when we are young, on the sunny slope among the pines, and look across an unknown country to the mountains. There are clouds, but they are edged with light. We do not fear as we dip into the valley; we do not fear the clouds. Thank God for the splendid fearlessness of youth. And as for older travelers whom Love has led over hill and dale, they have not been given the spirit of fear. They think of the way they have come since they stood on that bright hillside and their word is always this: There are reasons for hope and for happiness, and never one for fear.

The mist and the clouds, and the light in the clouds, work together like separate notes in a melody; even the shadows of the pine trees on the grass have their part to play in making the picture. There is nothing that could be left out without loss.

And so it is with the picture of our lives. We are called to believe this and to act as though we believed. (We are never meant to be like the host of the Egyptians when their chariot wheels fell of so that they drove them heavily) We have the presence and the promises of God. We are meant to march to that great music.

Wrapped in the clouds and hidden by the mist is all that makes up life, its woods and ravines, its upland meadows where we go with much content, its hills called Difficulty and its Delectable mountains: in brief, its greater and smaller joys and sorrows, its trials of faith, disciplines, battering of soul and body; all that our Saviour, in His story of the two builders, calls rain and floods and wind and the vehement beating of a stream.

There is no house of life out of reach of the stream. So, to be surprised when the rain descends and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon the house, as though some strange thing happened to us, is unreasonable and unjust; it so miscalls our good Master, who never told us to build for fair weather or even to be careful to build out of reach of floods.

"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

Acts 14:22

"Ye will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross."

Samuel Rutheford

Even so, even though we must walk in the land of fear, there is no need to fear. The power of His resurrection comes before the fellowship of His sufferings.

I want to know Christ
And the Power of his resurrection
And the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings
Becoming like Him in his death."

Phil. 3:10

Readers, I'm sorry for the long quote, but Amy says it so much better than I could. This except is from Amy Carmichael's Gold by Moonlight, previously published as Figures of the True.