Now a man may forget this in health. He may be put
out and unhappy for a while: but when his good spirits return, he
does not know why. Things have not improved; but, somehow, they do
not affect him as they did before. Now this is not wrong. God
forbid! In such a world as this, one is glad to see a man rid of
sadness by any means which is not wrong. Better anything than that
a poor soul should fret himself to death.
But it may be very good for a man now and then not to forget; to be
kept low, whether by ill health or by any other cause, till he faces
fairly his own state, and finds out honestly what does fret him and
torment him.
And then, I believe, his experience will generally be like David's.--
'As long as I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my groaning
all the day long.'
Think over these words, I beg you. I chose them for my text, just
because they seem to me to contain all that I wish you to
understand. As long as the Psalmist held his peace--as long as he
did not confess his sin to God--all seemed to go wrong with him. He
fretted his very heart away. The moment that he made a clean breast
to God, peace and cheerfulness came back to him.
This psalm may speak of some really great sin which he had
committed. But that makes all the more strongly for us.
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