We are not courageous by nature, but, rather, cowards. We are too great self-lovers to side against the clamor and self-pity of the old creation. Self-pity will ruin one quicker than many so-called outbreaking sins.

It takes courage to face life and its failures, the old creation with its propensities, the peculiar tempera­ment and its frailties, and not indulge in some subtle form of excuse. Many times we are conscious of the failure and become discouraged. Why? Because we try to remodel and build up what God does not want re­ stored. Or we sit down under self-condemnation which is not of the Spirit.

God neither condemns us nor blames us for what we are by nature. We need not excuse it or explain it. We confess it; name it by its name; side against it; let it alone and sing. Faith can sing, sight cannot carry a tune. We must not tarry in the positive relations of life with its golden morning-light and youth, nor again, in the negative aspect, with its thunder and storm. We sail on, ever on.

The sea is wide. God waits to hear the song of faith, triumphant over things seen—the song born from the wreckage of the old. It is not the vessel but the song which counts.