The useless burdens we impose upon ourselves show our lack of wisdom generally. The desire to outshine our friends in artificial glitter brings one of the heaviest loads we have to bear; and it neither elevates ourselves nor those around us. It may possibly carry us up higher, for a time, in the social scale; but it very rarely has a moral influence on our lives, and the fiery furnace that is to purify us will seem all the hotter after such a trifling use of the power we have derived from the Infinite. When we are striving to do good, and our burdens seem heavy, they become light with the thought that we have a burden-bearer, even God, and that we can bear no burden save with His strength.
There is no stintedness in Omnipotence. The sun, moon and stars never fail us, and man is never deserted in his need; but we are not the best judges of what we most need, striving, as we so constantly are, after the temporal. We are each a drop in the ocean of Life, and that is always perfect in its fulness. God never forgets us, and we may rest in His strength. It is our perfect inheritance. The pleasures of this we call "flesh" are like the mirage, attractive, perhaps, in the distance; but as we approach them they are nothing, bringing with them nothing to reward our efforts but a belief of weariness. Then let us strive to make our gain in the right direction; not in worldly pomp and glitter but in a spiritual growth; then we shall have rest for weariness, a balm for every wounded thought, and peace beyond understanding.
Ah! poor, weary mortals, when you understand the rest there is in Infinite strength how much burden-bearing you will save! Your tiredness will disappear as by magic, and you will realize how little the flesh profiteth you or any one else. Temporal pleasures are alluring and deceptive; but the rest and peace of eternal Love we have now, at once. You do not believe, because you will not. Christian Healing is as attainable to you as to me, and I can prove my faith by works, which comes through the understanding that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, and that "height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate me" from Him. We may deny Him and suffer, or we may turn to Him and be strengthened and healed.
