Discipline for Living

None of us can count with certainty on any prolonged period of tranquillity. When things seem to be going about as we would have them gowhen at last it seems that we might relax and live according to our own plans and purposes, it so often happens that uninvited events quickly change the pattern, ofttimes despite our best planning. Why it should be so is a question that is often asked and difficult to answer. Certainly part of the answer is to be found in the fact that if we had everything our own way, there are many developing experiences which we would surely spare ourselves. There are many things we learn at great cost which later prove to be worth more than they costeven though by our own choice we would avoid them if we could. Even as there are few children who would not at some time prefer to avoid going to school, with its discipline and its pains of learning, so, likewise, there are few adults but who would not at some time prefer to avoid the problems and the disciple of life. But the great Teacher of all men, the Father of us all, who prescribes the curriculum and fixes the requirements for graduation, somehow sees that we get our share of the lessons of life, to fashion and to fit us for things to come, according to our needs and nature. And we may confidently conclude that he who lives life just as he plans it misses much, because the things we don’t plan for ourselves are often just as necessary to our happiness as the things we do planeven if they are harder, even if they bring effort and heartache and difficulty and disappointment. We may still ask why; we may rebel; we may honestly believe that we ourselves are the best judges of what would give us happiness; and some of us may never find an answer hat satisfies us this side of the grave. But to each of us will come the answer, if not now, then later. We have a long time to learneternity, if necessary but blessed are we if we learn early to meet life as it comes, and to have faith, when events move beyond our control, that we shall find ultimate compensation for every experience, with strength growing out of our difficulties, and with understanding growing out of our disappointments.