Chapter 12

Serving Others

WHILE it is true that man may reduce the disorder of his own life almost to vanishing point by bringing his thoughts into harmony with Truth, he yet may be mixed up with the troubles of others. Indeed, his greater capacity to love and serve others may bring him experiences which he would otherwise not meet. As a matter of fact, he does not want to avoid them, for the one idea of the advanced soul is to serve others and to deal faithfully, day by day, with the problems and experiences that life brings to him. His principal sorrow may not have anything to do with his own life, but may be concerned with the life of another. Someone whom he loves may be in trouble, or may be taking the wrong path in life. We all of us, at some time, have to pass through such experiences as these. The troubles of others may cause us more suffering than anything that could befall us personally. It is our privilege to know a saintly soul of a man—a clergyman —who bears on his own shoulders the troubles and griefs of all his parishioners who will allow him to share their sorrows. Whenever the wings of the Dark Angel cast their shadow over a home there is a knock at the door—it is the Vicar come to pray with the bereaved and to tell them of life beyond the grave, in such a way as to take away forever all fear of death, and to lessen very sensibly the wrench of parting. If there is pain to be borne, the Vicar is always close at hand. It does not matter at what inconvenience, nor how fatigued he may be, nothing can keep him away. No wonder that to meet such a man as this makes one say: “This surely is not an ordinary man such as we, but a great soul come specially to earth to comfort and bless erring, suffering humanity, and lead them to higher and better things.’’

But even we who are of ordinary clay can get mixed up in things and not know where to turn because of the troubles of others. “What may be the good of it all?’’ you may say: “cannot we ever get a quiet time, free from experiences?” The ‘’good of it” is that such experiences enrich the spiritual life, and through them we learn to know God better and in a more personal and intimate way than ever before. One such personal experience may illustrate what we mean.

One night the burden of someone else’s troubles and difficulties lay heavily upon us. Indeed, they had pressed upon us for days and weeks, but at this time the burden seemed very great. The whole night was spent, more or less, in prayer. Our soul was sad, for we seemed to come in contact with certain lives and yet we could influence them so little for good. Life seemed so empty and futile, because of the little good that we could do. Souls come in contact with us and then pass out into the night; and we seem to have influenced them so little, if at all. And so our heart went up in intercession. Was there no way of escape for this one? Could nothing be done to help? Then when it seemed that we had been humbled, to the depths, by a vision of our worthlessness and uselessness in the world, and of how far short we had fallen of that which we ought to have been; when we had been grieved and saddened beyond words by what apparently lay before the one with whose trouble we were ‘’mixed up,’’ so to speak, God gave a sign, a gracious word that brought peace to the soul. The words: ‘’Cast thy burden on the Lord and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved,” came into consciousness, with that wonderful sense of illumination and understanding that always accompany experiences of this kind. Such simple experiences as these are like hearing a voice from heaven. These words revealed to us the glorious fact that if we only put the whole trouble upon God, He would not only sustain us, but would sort everything out, unravel the tangled skein-although beyond hope from a human point of view—and over-rule everything for good.

The result of such an experience as this is to know God better than ever before, and to realize His Power and Presence more than ever before. And so we go on, ever making fresh discoveries of the richness and wonders of the love and care of God.