| Finding the Way |
Chapter 5 |
Page 4 |
We have hints of the same truth in the Old Testament. For example, we read with reference to God’s people: “In all their afflictions He was afflicted.” But the New Testament teaching means far more than this, for Christ lived all the story of human life through to its close, for Himself, and, therefore, knows it by experience. When we are weary, it comforts us to remember that many times He was weary, too. When we are treated unfairly, unkindly, or even with bitter wrong, it strengthens us to know that He understands, because He suffered in the same way. In our temptations it helps us to endure to remember that He was “tempted in all points like as we are.” In any path in which we have to walk we can always find His footprints – He went over the same way before us, and, therefore, understands and sympathizes with us.
There are many experiences in which the sympathy of Christ, if it were realized, would give great comfort. There are people who are misunderstood. Indeed, there is no one whom others always fully understand. Even our truest friends ofttimes put wrong constructions upon what we do what we say. Little things separate lives which ought to be kept close together. Very much sadness is caused by misunderstandings.
“No understood! How many hearts are aching
For lack of sympathy! Ah, day by day,
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking.
How many noble spirits pass away
Not understood!
“O God! That man would see a little clearer,
Or judge less harshly when they cannot see.
O God! That men might draw a little nearer
To one another. They’d be nearer Thee,
And understood.”
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