t it will change our
feelings. The more we rebel, the more we shall suffer. The way to get rid
of the suffering is to get rid of the rebellion. We must submit;
therefore, why not do it gracefully? Many times we can not change
circumstances, no matter how much we dislike them. Resentment will not
hurt circumstances, but it will hurt us. We need to learn the lesson of
submission without rebellion--submission to circumstances and to God.

The Lord is our Master. It is right for him to order our lives as he sees
best. Sometimes it is he who changes our plans for his own purpose; and
when he does this, the outcome is always better than the thing of our own
choosing. If we rebel, we are rebelling against God, and right there lies
the danger. If we are so determined to have our own way that we do not
willingly submit to God's way, he may have to let us suffer. But when we
submit and commit our ways to him, then we shall have the consolation and
comfort of his Holy Spirit. If we will just learn to change a single
letter in disappointment, and spell it with an "h" instead of a "d," it
will help take the sting out. Try it once. This is what we have: His
appointment. Now, does not that make it quite different?

TALK FORTY-THREE. THE BIG END OF TROUBLE

I once saw in a paper some verses the first lines of which were something
like the following:

"Trouble has a way of coming
Big end first;
And when seen at its appearing,
Looks its very worst."

Many people are always seeing trouble. They are "troubled on every side."
When they talk, it is generally to tell of their trouble. There are others
who, though they have troubles, seem able to put them in the background,
and say but little about them. They talk of victory, of the Lord's help,
and of the joys of salvation. We all have our troubles; for man is "of few
days, and full of trouble," but the greatest troubles any of us have, I
think, are the ones that never come. How truly the poet has spoken in the
above-quoted lines! Just as he says, trouble comes big end first and fills
us with forebodings.

How easy it is to worry over the troubles that loom up in the future. "Oh,
how shall we meet them!" we exclaim. "Oh, I do not see what I shall do!"
and we fear and tremble before them. Nearly all the joy is excluded from
some people's lives by the shadow of coming troubles; but when those
troubles come upon us, we someway, somehow, pass through them.