Job 5:26

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"Thou shall come to thy grave in full age." Job 5:26

Wonderful to notice how light and shade mingle in Bible story and in the story of general life. "Thou shalt come to thy grave" is a solemn warning; but when it is added, "in full age," it would seem as if the solemnity were relieved by a beam of cheerfulness. The two statements must be taken together, if we would do justice to the providence of God. To look at the grave alone is unfair to the divine purpose; so it is unfair to look at crosses, trials, and all manner of disappointment and discipline: the right view will take in all the circumstances, so far as possible, from the beginning to the end. Interpreted in this way, providence is a grand disclosure of the righteousness, love, and wisdom of God. We should accustom ourselves to look for the mitigations of human sorrow or disappointment. The eye that is always on the outlook for such mitigations will find a plentiful harvest in the providence of daily life. Where is there a human lot that has not some mitigation of his burden and suffering? Sometimes, indeed the sufferer is more apt to see the mitigation than are the observers. What lies heavily on the body may be in large part counteracted by inborn cheerfulness of soul, so that the spirit may triumph over the flesh. What is wanting in one region of life may be more than made up by a superabundance of good in another. The great lesson is, we are always to look for whatever can mitigate, lessen, or in any way throw a gleam of happiness upon the distresses of life. Think of a completed course, such as is sketched in the text. There is always more or less of beauty in completeness. It is when the column is broken in two that it appeals to us pathetically. When the column is completed we admire and wonder, and are filled with gladness because of the fitness of things: something in the human spirit responds to outward harmony: there can be no true harmony where there is incompleteness or failure of design. We may not come to our grave "in full age," for that is an Old Testament term; but we may come to our grave in full character, in full preparedness, meet for the Master's use, content to leave the earth, yea, rather desiring to flee away from it and be at rest in heaven. Where the sense of immortality is triumphant, every burden of life is not only lessened but destroyed; that is to say, it is no longer felt as a burden; we endure as seeing the invisible; we despise the shame of the cross because of the glory that is soon to be revealed. A sad thing when the only completion of a man is the number of years which he has lived. Completeness of age should suggest completeness of character. The old man should be full of the wisdom of experience, even though he be ignorant of the knowledge of letters: he should have seen enough of life to justify certain broad practical inferences; and without being sated with life he should feel that he has had enough of it on earth, should it be God's will to open the gate of heaven and allow him to enter into its service. Seeing there is an appointed time to man upon the earth that there is "full age" it behoves man to reckon the number of his days, that he may see what fortune of time he has to spend, and so invest it as to make the largest results accrue. No human power can prevent our coming to the grave, but it lies very much with ourselves to say whether we shall come as conquerors or as conquered men.