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"Telling Jesus."
"THINGS always seem to go smoothly with you," said a complaining disciple to Mr. F-----,
"I never hear you making any complaints."
"I have found out an effectual way of guarding against that fault," said Mr. F-----.
"One day, in reading the Bible, I came across this passage in Mark vi,30: `The apostles gathered themselves unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.' It occurred to me that, when I had any trouble, before I told any one I should first tell Jesus; and I found on trial that if I told Him first, I seldom had occasion to tell any one else. I often found the burden entirely removed while in the act of telling Him about it; and trouble which has its burden removed, is no longer trouble."
"We ought to pray for deliverance from our trials, but Jesus needs no information respecting them; He is omniscient and omnipotent, and has no need that anything be told him."
"That is true; yet he listened with complacency and kindness while His disciples `told Him all things.'
In His sympathizing condescension, He permits us to repeat to Him our troubles and our joys, though He knows
them all. He listens to them with interest, just as a tender father listens to the narrative of his child, though it conveys no information: and He has connected great blessings with this exercise of filial
confidence. It lessens sorrows, doubles joys, and increases faith. The more assiduously we cultivate this intimate intercourse with the Saviour, the greater will be our happiness, and the more rapid our progress
toward heaven.
If we would make it a rule to go to Jesus every night, and tell Him all the events of the day, all that we have purposed and felt, and said and done and suffered, would it not have a great influence on our conduct during the day? It certainly would; the thought that we would have to tell Jesus about it would restrain us from many an unholy act. We could not willfully indulge in that which caused the agonies of the garden and the cross, if we were to make it the subject of our conversation with Him before committing ourselves to slumber."
“It seems to me that for me to tell Him all my experience would be occupying his attention with trifles; I should have nothing but sin and folly to relate."
"Sin and folly are not trifles; and the way
to get a right view of the evil of sin is to speak of it before Him.
And depend upon it, my brother, that if you will go to Jesus every night, and tell Him all things that have occurred during the day, it will speedily lift you above the world; it will do much toward making the will of Christ your guiding, governing principle; it will enable you to bear your cross without repining; it will make you, in mind and temper, like Him with whom you hold this intimate communion. Oh that all Christians were in the habit of closing the day by going to Jesus, and telling Him all things that they have done, and omitted to do, during the day!"
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