“STIFLED” is he who can get no air; pants for breath; feels everything work in and press upon him; feels himself giving out; and is conscious of anxious sweat forming drops upon his forehead, so that, unless relief comes, he shall suffocate.
But worse still than this being stifled in chest and throat, is the stifling of the soul of a man, when the mind is distressed, the heart perplexed, the soul harrowed; when everything is to him immured; and there is no way of escape; and “the fury of the oppressor” (Isa. 51:13) comes upon him, so that there are bands and prisons; and thousand deaths go through his heart, and all the billows of the Almighty go over him!
In a poor human heart at times it can be unspeakably stifling! Stifling with an oppression, over which we have no more power. That we lie cast down as in the nethermost pit; with lions around us on every side; without light before our eye; and without water to cool the tip of our tongue!
In youth one does not believe in this. Then one considers it hallucination and bigotry and therefore feels no inclination toward the Word of God, that would comfort all such as are thus oppressed, and addresses those who are thus perplexed of heart. Yea, you even find grey-haired men, and women advanced in years, who still make light of the complaint of “oppressions of soul”.
Sometimes this stone-blindness goes so far, that even devout Christian people see nothing in these perplexed conditions of a human heart, save gloomy exaggeration. Then it is said to be owing to a man’s temperament. To melancholia of constitution. To too dark an outlook upon things.
And this jesting and smiling goes on, until once more a man appears, of a grave countenance, in whose eye one reads perplexity of soul, and who has courage to say to these superficial people: “Yes, I am a man who has seen trouble!”
And such persons appear again and again in the several circles of life.
No mention of it then appears in the public press, but it does take place; and God writes it in His book above; and the angels take notice of it; and the “Savior from perplexities” (Jer. 14:8) looks down upon it with all the compassion of His comforting countenance.
And whether the world will it or not, and superficial Christians believe it or not, the cry of those, who are thus perplexed, appeals to the heart, and works an unbelievable effect upon those who hear it. Mightier than any other instrument is this very anxiety “of him who lieth in the pit” to arouse the false confidence of sleeping souls!
Anxiety has something unspeakably touching in its effect upon us.
There are throes in this anxiety of soul as of a woman in travail. But for this very reason from this anxiety there is birth, there comes strength, such anxiety bears fruit.
To be troubled of soul is to be in labor for the Kingdom of heaven; to be in sorrow for the sake of a higher life; in one moment to die a thousand deaths, that from this death life might germinate; except—and this is the most awful—except this anxiety is of hellish origin; and rises from your own wickedness, and drives you to despair, and so forces you into a yet more hopeless state before your God.
But apart from this, and merely considered as the anxiety, in which God the Lord ensnares our soul, to trouble us, till we must give up, then yes, there is in this “anxiety” an altogether Divine apprehension. For then that pressure of God’s hand around your soul is even as when you squeeze a bag empty of air, that, when presently released, it may suck in air of itself till it can hold no more.
This altogether unbearable anxiety is nothing else than that God first drives out from your lungs the impure, unholy air which you had breathed in from beneath, that by the vacuum thus created within, suction might originate, to drink in the fresh air of God’s blessed heaven.
For your soul is even as your lungs.
It is made to breathe in air, i. e. to breathe in, and drink in the life of God.
So long therefore as your soul is filled with poisonous vapors and air-particles which are not from God, the life of God can not enter in, and then in spite of this to bring it in, God must needs first empty you of self, and lay you low, that everything unholy may go out of you, and room be made in you, for that breath of the Lord, which belongs to the lungs of your soul.
Whether therefore this stifling comes to you by distressing circumstances in business affairs, in your home, by reason of your children, in your plans, in your deliberations, in your musings and meditations, or whether it creeps upon you from your blood to your soul and lodges in your body and attacks you in diseases and pains, or finally that they are immediate spiritual anxieties, which consciously are concerned about God’s justice and your own doom-worthiness and impotence, or even, more distressingly still degenerate into temptations of the Evil one,—all this is but a difference of degree! Anxiety is anxiety, and all anxiety when it presses hard, is terrible, and if it be but wound by God round the soul of His child, it is in each of these degrees the means to slay you and to make your Savior alive in you.
And this keeps you standing.
A woman in travail would almost succumb, if she did not know “it is for the sake of my child!” and so likewise your travailing soul would perish, if she did not know, that it is for the sake of a breath of God for the soul.
But now that she knows this, knows that “for the soul in heaviness presently comes a garment of praise”, that when the hour of darkness shall have overpassed, she shall come again into “a roomy place”, and that the soul now in distress shall gloriously be enlarged (Ps. 4:1), now she jubilates with Habakuk (3:16): “I shall rest in the day of trouble,” and with Jonah (2:7) in the belly of the monster, prays: “When my soul is overwhelmed within me, I will yet call upon the Lord!”
And when our gracious and compassionate God doeth yet more, and shows Himself to be so compassionate and pitying, that He never puts you into a pit, but that He himself descends into it with you, that He never imprisons you behind bars and bolts, but that in the imprisonment you find the arms of His eternal compassion always still underneath you, yea, so, that He, with holy calm, can say: “In all your afflictions I, your God, have been afflicted” (Isa. 63:9), confess, my reader, could this infinite, gracious God do yet more for us; and is our murmuring in the affliction then not shamefully loveless?
These are again the passion weeks!
Do you then live at the Cross?
Also in what, deeper yet than that Cross, has been suffered in Jesus’ deeply tortured soul?
When He was oppressed and trod the winepress alone and no one was with Him?
When He became troubled even unto death.
When the blood of anxiety as drops of sweat fell down from His forehead!
That you might thank your Savior for it, by a steadier confidence when anxiety overtakes you, and by being less afraid in the close presence of your Lord.
This is most delightful to the mother, when she sees: “My child is less afraid when he but sees me near!”
And would Jesus be less to you than the mother to her child?…
And, therefore, when trouble overtakes you, do not forget Jesus, and think of Him, when you see one of your brethren in distress.
Affliction is a dreadful thing, and to comfort the soul of others in their distress is so blessed, so almost divine, and altogether a fruit in your own soul of the suffering of your Lord!
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