There are certain things that are not sins themselves but that tend to weigh us down or become distractions and stumbling blocks to our Christian growth. One of the worst of these is the feeling of despair or hopelessness.

A heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of the children of Israel to enter the Promised Land began with their complaining, or as the Word says it, “All the Israelites grumbled” (Numbers 14:2). It may have started with a faint desire to complain and be discontent, but they allowed it to continue until it blossomed and ripened into total rebellion and ruin.

We should never give ourselves the freedom to doubt God or His eternal love and faithfulness toward us in everything. We can be determined to set our own will against doubt just as we do against any other sin. Then as we stand firm, refusing to doubt, the Holy Spirit will come to our aid, giving us the faith of God and crowning us with victory.

It is very easy to fall into the habit of doubting, worrying, wondering if God has forsaken us, and thinking that after all we have been through, our hopes are going to end in failure. But let us refuse to be discouraged and unhappy! Let us “consider it pure joy” (James 1:2), even when we do not feel any happiness. Let us rejoice by faith, by firm determination, and by simply regarding it as true, and we will find that God will make it real to us.

The Devil has two very masterful tricks. The first is to tempt us to become discouraged, for then we are defeated and of no service to others, at least for a while. The other is to tempt us to doubt, thereby breaking the bond of faith that unites us with the Father. So watch out! Do not be tricked either way. G. E. M.

I like to cultivate the spirit of happiness! It retunes my soul and keeps it so perfectly in tune that Satan is afraid to touch it. The chords of my soul become so vibrant and full of heavenly electricity that he takes his fiendish fingers from me and goes somewhere else! Satan is always wary of interfering with me when my heart is full of the happiness and joy of the Holy Spirit.

My plan is simply to shun the spirit of sadness as I would normally shun Satan, but unfortunately I am not always successful. Like the Devil himself, sadness confronts me while I am on the highway of usefulness. And it stays face-to-face with me until my poor soul turns blue and sad! In fact, sadness discolors everything around me and produces a mental paralysis. Nothing has any appeal to me, future prospects seem clouded in darkness, and my soul loses all its aspirations and power!

An elderly believer once said, “Cheerfulness in our faith causes any act of service to be performed with delight, and we are never moved ahead as swiftly in our spiritual calling as when we are carried on the wings of happiness. Sadness, however, clips those wings or, using another analogy, causes the wheels to fall off our chariot of service. Our chariot then becomes like those of the Egyptians at the Red Sea, dragging heavily on its axle and slowing our progress.”

Running “with patience” is a very difficult thing to do. The word “running” itself suggests the absence of patience, or an eagerness to reach the goal. Yet we often associate patience with lying down or standing still.

We think of it as an angel who guards the bed of the disabled. Yet I do not believe that the kind of patience a disabled person may have is the hardest to achieve.

There is another kind of patience that I believe is harder to obtain—the patience that runs. Lying down during a time of grief, or being quiet after a financial setback, certainly implies great strength, but I know of something that suggests even greater strength—the power to continue working after a setback, the power to still run with a heavy heart, and the power to perform your daily tasks with deep sorrow in your spirit. This is a Christlike thing!

Many of us could tearlessly deal with our grief if only we were allowed to do so in private. Yet what is so difficult is that most of us are called to exercise our patience not in bed but in the open street, for all to see. We are called upon to bury our sorrows not in restful inactivity but in active service—in our workplace, while shopping, and during social events—contributing to other people’s joy. No other way of burying our sorrow is as difficult as this, for it is truly what is meant by running “with patience.”

Dear Son of Man, this was Your kind of patience. It was both waiting and running at one time—waiting for the ultimate goal while in the meantime doing lesser work. I see You at Cana of Galilee, turning water into wine so the marriage feast would not be ruined. I see You in the desert, feeding the multitude with bread, simply to relieve a temporary need. Yet all the time, You were bearing a mighty grief—not shared or spoken. Others may ask for a “rainbow in the clouds” (Genesis 9:13), but I would ask for even more from You. Make me, in my cloud, a rainbow bringing the ministry of joy to others. My patience will only be perfect when it works in Your vineyard. G EORGE MATHESON

When all our hopes are gone, It is best our hands keep toiling on For others’ sake: For strength to bear is found in duty done; And he is best indeed who learns to make The joy of others cure his own heartache.

The miraculous story of Paul’s voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a wonderful example of the light and the darkness through the journey of faith of human life. And the most remarkable part of the journey is the difficult and narrow places that are interspersed with God’s extraordinary providence and intervention.

It is a common misconception that the Christian’s walk of faith is strewn with flowers and that when God intervenes in the lives of His people, He does so in such a wonderful way as to always lift us out of our difficult surroundings. In actual fact, however, the real experience is quite the opposite. And the message of the Bible is one of alternating trials and triumphs in the lives of “a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), everyone from Abel to the last martyr.

Paul, more than anyone else, is an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being defeated or broken in spirit. Because of his testimony given in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and forced to flee for his life. Yet we see no heavenly chariot, amid lightning bolts of fire, coming to rescue the holy apostle from the hands of his enemies. God instead worked a simple way of escape for Paul: “His followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall” (Acts 9:25). Yes, he was in an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry or groceries. The servant of the Lord Jesus Christ was lowered from a window over the wall of Damascus, and in a humble way escaped the hatred of his foes.

Later we find him languishing for months in lonely dungeons, telling of his “sleepless nights and hunger” (2 Corinthians 6:5), of being deserted by friends, and of his brutal, humiliating beatings. And even after God promised to deliver him, we see him left for days to toss upon a stormy sea and compelled to protect a treacherous sailor. And finally, once his deliverance comes, it is not by way of some heavenly ship sailing from the skies to rescue this illustrious prisoner. Nor is there an angel who comes walking on the water to still the raging sea. There is no supernatural sign at all of surpassing greatness being carried out, for one man is required to grab a piece of the mast to survive, another a floating timber, another a small fragment of the shipwreck, and yet another is forced to swim for his life.

In this account, we also find God’s pattern for our own lives. It is meant to be good news to those who live in this everyday world in ordinary surroundings and who face thousands of ordinary situations, which must be met in completely ordinary ways.

God’s promises and His providence do not lift us from the world of common sense and everyday trials, for it is through these very things that our faith is perfected. And it is in this world that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love with the twists and turns of our common, everyday experiences.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.—Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.—Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness.

Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.

Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord.—If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your's also.—I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.—Forasmuch . . . as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

In the world ye shall have tribulation.

Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.

At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The slothful man saith, There is a lion without.—Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

I press toward the mark.—I . . . so run, not as uncertainly; I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, . . . I myself should be a castaway.

The fashion of this world passeth away.

Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent.—Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Get wisdom, get understanding.—The wisdom that is from above.—The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me.—We are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.—God . . . hath quickened us together with Christ, . . . and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

They that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.—Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness.

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; . . . but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.—Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

And I said, O that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.

In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.

For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.—Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

O Lord , we have waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.

Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.—I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.—Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.—Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap.

Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not.

Seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

Your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

Having food and raiment let us be therewith content . . .

They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.

An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.

All things are yours; . . . the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.

Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.

Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.