The Disciplines of Life — V. Raymond Edman

The Discipline of Detail

''For to me to live is Christ'' (Phil. 1:21).

Life has its occasional crisis that crashes into its commonplaces, but it is more largely made up of details that seem in themselves to be insignificant and unimportant. In the multitude of many duties we may fail altogether to see any pattern to the details of life, and thereby we may miss much of its meaning, not to mention its melody. Details can give the motif, as well as the music, to any life.

Without any stretch of the imagination, life can be likened unto a sentence, in English, or in any other language. A sentence, we recall, is ''a combination of words which is complete or expressing a thought, and in writing is usually marked at the close by a period; a sense unit comprising a subject and a predicate, especially one with both subject and finite verb expressed.'' Incidentally, that sentence is complicated and perhaps difficult to comprehend at first sight. How much like life it is!

Life, like a sentence, should have its subject, expressed or implied. To have self as the subject of

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one's life sentence is to have narrow horizons, shallow objectives, unsatisfactory achievements; in brief, a life that is wasted. ''Whosoever will save his life shall lose it'' (Mark 8:35), in this existence, not to speak of eternity. The life with Christ as its grand subject is the life with wide horizons, worthy aims and entirely satisfactory accomplishment. It is the life defined by the Apostle Paul, ''For to me to live is Christ'' (Phil. 1:21). The measure in which we lose our life for Jesus' sake is the measure of life's breadth, height, depth, motivation and meaning.

The details of a sentence have their significance in life. The Most High puts punctuation marks into our lives, to make them comprehensible and complete. At the moment we may not understand the import of the punctuation, but when the sentence is complete, or even before, we can begin to catch its meaning. A comma indicates a slight change in the direction of the sentence, and an addition to its meaning or enlargement and enrichment to its description. In our impetuosity we want to rush onward toward the conclusion of a given matter; and the Lord begins to add to our lives and to set off that which is new, deeper, and richer by His comma. Let us not be impatient with His apparent change of thought or meaning; rather let us trust that His comma comprehends His compassion and concern for us.

The semicolon indicates a more abrupt and basic change in the direction of the sentence. Quite possibly you have come to a point in life when suddenly

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the meaning is left unfinished, the light goes out in the sky, the song has turned into silence, or even into a sob; there seems to be neither rhyme nor reason, neither present nor future to your life. The Lord is changing the direction of your life, not to close it, nor to constrain its significance within narrow horizons; on the contrary, He wants to make it broader, deeper, richer; and therefore He puts a semicolon after a given line of thought that you would have desired to have continued.

I have found it so rather frequently in my life. We have enjoyed friends, service, and the like, only to find that the Lord brings to a conclusion such delight that He might use us elsewhere in His service. We were happy and busy on the mission field in Ecuador, and planned to spend all our days in God's glad service there. Young people and older had come to the knowledge of Christ and were preparing themselves to be witnesses among their countrymen. We could visualize no place more useful nor happy. But one day the Lord wrote a semicolon. To be sure, there is then the temptation to feel that life is without meaning, or that the Most High is mistaken in His measures toward us, or that we have failed to heed His guidance. We must remember that circumstances are no criterion of the center of the will of God. Paul and Silas were utterly persuaded of God's call to Macedonia out of a vision of a man therefrom calling to them; and the injustice of their imprisonment in Philippi with its pain and pitiless darkness constituted no evidence

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that they had been led astray by their own thought or desire. God's semicolon in your life means that He wants to change rather radically the course thereof, that He desires to enlarge its content, and not at all that He has cut you off from or forgotten to be gracious. Some hearts have sat down to sob inconsolably at God's semicolon, and never have gone forward into the clarifying clause that lies beyond. He will make it plain!

Parentheses are indicative of even deeper perplexity than that caused by the semicolon. The whole forward movement of the sentence is suspended and something that seems totally irrelevant is inserted therein. It seems that our lives could do without the interruption, the delay, difficulty, or darkness that has entered. It all seems so entirely without explanation or purpose. We seek to fathom the reason for the sick room and its silence when we sought to serve the Saviour, to decipher the delay and disappointment, to understand the misunderstanding with its tears and apparent tragedy. The parentheses seem inopportune or unimportant, or even impertinent; but there they are.

John Bunyan had reason to be bewildered by life's parentheses. Out of deep darkness and despair he had come to sweet knowledge of salvation through Christ, and had gone forth into His glad service. He had been happy and successful in that service; and then came the long and silent years in Bedford jail. Within that parenthesis he found meaning in God's perplexing providences; and we

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have learned long afterward more of that apparently pointless period in his life. Let us listen to him:

''I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now . . . Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now—here I have seen and felt Him indeed . . . . I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world . . . I never knew what it was for God to stand by me at all times . . . . I had also this consideration, that if I should venture all for God, I engaged God to take care of my concerns. . . . Now was my heart full of comfort. . . . I would not have been without this trial for much: I am comforted every time I think of it, and hope I shall bless God forever for the teachings I have had by it.''¹ All of that and more in a parenthesis!

Then there is the period that brings the sentence to its completion. Of course the sentence can conclude with a question mark, if life is essentially an interrogation rather than a statement of fact. If our life reads ''For to me to live is Christ,'' it has a meaning different from the plain statement of the case. Life may be an enigma to us, but we should not be questionable to others. Also, the sentence may end in an exclamation point, with its surprise and astonishment, but hardly with its success. Life should not be an incomplete sentence, whose incompleteness

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¹ John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Greatest of Sinners, chap. 11.

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and disobedience will not escape the Master. We are to be disciplined by details, to write steadily onward until the sentence stands completed, even to the period.

There are as many kinds of sentences as there are lives. The sentence may be simple, not necessarily short, but without complication; it may be compound, with two or more independent clauses; it may be complex, with modifications qualifying the main clause; it may be loose, complex and yet with its meaning appearing early; and it may be periodic, also complex, but with its meaning not apparent until the last word or almost the last word has been reached; or it may be balanced, characterized by symmetry and evenness of flow. Whatever may be the structure of the life, however short or long it may be, wherever it may meander or keep to the beaten track, however many modifications may be made, however confusing it may seem for the time being, it should be meaningful and complete when the conclusion is reached at the period.

Comma, semicolon or colon, parentheses, modifiers, clauses independent and dependent, every detail of the sentence is designed for some purpose. We may be confused when God puts a comma in our life, or sigh inconsolably at a semicolon; we may be utterly perplexed by the apparent irrelevancy of the parenthetical portions which seem to have no connection with the past nor place in the future; we may be muddled by modifiers and be in consternation

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over some clause; but if our life is His hand-writing, if for us ''to live is Christ,'' then every detail can be a delight. The Lord of Life is the School-master of our life, to make its meaning clear.

Upon Thy Word I rest

Each pilgrim day;

This golden staff is best

For all the way.

What Jesus Christ hath spoken

Cannot be broken!

Upon Thy Word I rest,

So strong, so sure!

So full of comfort blest.

So sweet, so pure!

The charter of salvation,

Faith's broad foundation.

Upon Thy Word I stand,

That cannot die;

Christ seals it in my hand,

He cannot lie!

Thy Word that faileth never,

Abideth ever.

—Frances Ridley Havergal

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I Love A Tree

I love a tree,

A brave, upstanding tree!

When I am wearied in the strife,

Beaten by storms and bruised by life,

I look up at a tree, and it refreshes me.

If it can keep its head held high,

And look the storms straight in the eye,

Ready to stand, ready to die,

Then by the grace of God can I—

At least with Heaven's help, I'll try;

I love a tree, for it refreshes me!

I love a tree!

When it seems dead,

Its leaves all shorn and bared its head,

When winter flings its cold and snow,

It stands there undismayed by woe;

It stands there waiting for the spring—

A tree is such a believing thing.

I love a tree,

For it refreshes me!

—Raph Spaulding Cushman.*

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