AFTER the tension of Old year’s night the morning of New Year generally brings a certain relaxation.
The seriousness of the Old Year has something compelling about it, something that brings us together, and puts sadness in the heart by reason of the frailty of our life; yea, you may even say, that celebrating an anniversary in the evening-hour is already by itself far more striking, than an anniversary celebration in the early morning after you have just awakened and nervous sensitiveness is less keen;—but for all that there is something oppressive about the Old Year’s evening. It mostly ends in the tear of emotion more than in the laugh of unbridled joy. It is and remains a departure, even as New Year’s morning speaks to you of a new birth, of the birth of a year of life, that lies before you as a field of corn to be harvested, to which no sickle has yet been put.
To see such a year before you gives you a feeling of wealth. How much time there is there, of which you shall have the disposal. It is as though no end could ever come to it. What shall we not do in that long endless year, and accomplish, and bring to pass! One can not take it in, and that very fact of inability to grasp it all quickens the poetry of hope in the heart.
On New Year’s morning you actually see such relaxation in people. The expression of face is freer, more relaxed. Happy New Year wishes flow from the lips of all. In gifts hands are generous and equally ready are hands of others to receive them. Especially they who are younger, who accompanied the seriousness of the preceding evening rather than shared it more personally, feel, now that the New Year is come, they are themselves again. They do not yet know the anxious look, wherewith they who are older of days see the measure of their life shorten. On the contrary, their life does not speed too fast for them, but rather too slowly. They always reckon ahead. This yet and that yet, and only then shall they reach their goal. And now, this New Year also brings this passionately expected object nearer to them. Forward therefore with rapid steps. This year too hurried through to reach what must bring them the realization of their life’s ideal.
Among those on the other hand who are more advanced in life, this joyous note of cheery heartedness when it is again the first of January, does not always meet that glad response.
With many, for a part at least, it does; for this New Year also speaks of the mercies of our God. It is His faithfulness that we are still here, that we yet possess one another, that so much of good is our portion. And as in Israel even every new moon brought a day of rejoicing before the face of the Lord, so now among the children of God New Year day fills the heart with a feeling of thanks and of worship.
But do not forget, there are many, even among God’s people, who by hard work and strenuous rowing against the current, only just again a whole year long, feel so exhausted and discouraged, that the mere thought of having to face again such hardship without end, makes them shrink back; and sometimes makes them say: O, my God, why longer this exhausting struggle with never ending adversity!
So, for these children of adversity, “New Year” itself heightens the apprehensive feeling of carping care, wherewith they face the future.
The year again went by, and the end of it was so trying.
Then it pinches on every side. Everything has been tried. One sees no chance of finding new ways of escape. Cares and with it needs continue to oppress. And yet the prosperous day, for which one had ever waited and hoped, yea, which had been so earnestly prayed for from God, does not come.
And as it is now New Year again, they try to pray God for deliverance; but, and this is so hard, while they pray they realize in their heart, that it is no more believing prayer. It is not yet the prayer of despair; but prayer without elasticity to really pray, and without prophecying in the Amen that closes the prayer, the certainty of being heard and answered.
Might someone, who reads this, belong to their number, in their discouragement let them be reminded of the word of Jesus: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).
And then the likely answer is: Do not taunt me with that word of Jesus, for I also know it well, but when you must pay what you owe, and have not the money to pay with, what good is this word? I serve the Lord, for the sake of His kingdom I would be glad to do anything, but I must live, and with honor support my family. And, alas, there is no business, however much I have prayed God for it. And therefore do not press this word of Jesus on me. Confess, if you were in my place, would it not rather become to you also an offence to your faith?
The language of such grief, which they try so hard to hide, we understand and appreciate the inward gloom of such disheartened faith.
And it is even as you have thought. Prosperity and increase and good luck in home and in business you want, and now you will serve God, as means by which to obtain them, and if God is indeed true to His Word, He will and must cast into your lap that prosperity, that increase and that good luck in home and in business,—and so you were bound to be deceived, and that disappointment can not but shock your confidence of faith.
In this sense, however, the word of Jesus was not meant, and if so interpreted it is not true.
No, the service of God and of His Kingdom tends to bring your God to His honor, and by no means to have things here below go easy for you.
Read in Hebrew II of the cloud of witnesses. Men and women “who sought God and His righteousness”, and of them is written, that they suffered, and, “were stoned, were sawn asunder, slain with the sword, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, and have wandered about in deserts, and in dens and caves of the earth.”
See, that language is different!
This is a different seeking after “God and his righteousness”, from what thus far you have done.
And yet these are the men and women, who never lost courage, and who now wear the crown before the Throne.
Here is a mystery. The faith-mystery of childship.
The servant serves his master and receives wages, and on these wages he subsists. But the child serves father and mother, and asks for no wages, but father and mother provide food and shelter.
This is the difference.
For so there are here two that serve God. One serves Him for wages that it might be well with him. That is the form of the servant. The other serves God, because he “seeks Him and His righteousness” and God cares for him. That is the form of childship.
“Seek God and His righteousness” not that presently you may receive in exchange earthly welfare and prosperity, but because you want God and hunger and thirst after His righteousness.
He who hungers, does not seek bread, that he may exchange it for a flower, but for bread’s own sake, to eat it, and be satisfied by it.
And so here, whoever hungers after God and his righteousness, reaches out for it, though he should lose everything for the sake of it, yea, though it might cost him his life.
In ordinary life it thus comes to pass, that you spend all your strength, all your talent, in the service of the Lord, and that in all your interests and affairs you work for God alone; so work, that His approval may rest upon it, and that you ask after no outcome.
How then can you live?
That is what God takes care of, and as He cares for it, it shall be good to you.
And, though you may have worked ever so hard, each day your prayer: “Give Thou me my daily bread,” shall be sincere and no mere form, and whether you are called rich or poor, each day you will be able to thank your God heartily for it.
And what do you gain thereby?
Much in every way. Let us point out to you a twofold gain.
First you will do your work better, and so in business your work will count for more.
He who in business works for himself, can put off things, pass them on to some one else, take things easy, can also practice ignoble and dishonest things in it. But he who in all his work knows and feels: “I am busy for God and in His service”, can never be dishonest, can not come into debts, and puts into the hand that scours such double strength, that the metal which he scours becomes altogether bright and shining.
A simple illustration. A cook in a hotel, who knows that a prince became a guest in that hotel, will for the sake of that royal personage prepare his food yet better than ordinary. The knowledge that he cooks for a King, increases his strength and heightens his ingenuity.
And so a child of God, that knows: “I work, I labor for my King,” will because of it deliver better work, will work more carefully and handily, and thanks to this stimulus he will excel in excellency those who work for themselves.
So our fathers understood it, who thanks to their faith superseded other nations, and experienced, that godliness has a promise “also for the life that now is”.
This in the first place, and now the second.
Success in business and among people depends so incredibly much upon the disposition of heart and mind.
It that is sullen, dull and heavy, dejected and timorous, work will show the marks of it, it will lack animation, and by that depression of spirits, in everything the mainspring will be wanting, which vigorously does things.
If on the other hand you are in high spirits, feel yourself carried by inspiring ideas, elasticity revives in you, work prospers and succeeds, and with pleasure you resume work every time, with inward delight to bring it to a finish.
And this last energetic disposition of spirits, is what Jesus would waken in you.
He knows, that, so long as you continue to look dejectedly upon your position in the world, there is, O, so much, that will press down on you with weight of lead, will stifle you, and take all courage from you.
And therefore with a strong hand Jesus takes hold of your heart, to draw your eye away entirely from these depressing cares, and says to you: Leave that to Me.
And now He directs your heart to an high, an inspiring, an heart-uplifting end, to the question indeed, how in your heart, in your home, in your business and in all your affairs you may find the Lord your God and delight yourself in His righteousness.
He who hath ears to hear, and understands that word of Jesus, casts himself upon it, and begins at once to seek his God and His righteousness.
This makes him rich, this makes him courageous, this inspires him.
And the wondrous outcome is, that now of itself work succeeds better, and that a providence of God watches over him and over his, for which presently: together with his own upon his knees, O, so heartily he thanks his God.
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