Deeper Life #178

But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

—Psalm 71:14

THERE IS A THRESHOLD TO our nerves. By that I mean there is a point at which our nerves begin to be affected. Some people’s nerves are not affected as quickly as others, while some seem to live in constant misery. One person can sleep in a tremendous racket, while another would be kept awake by the slightest noise.

Take sound alone. The ears gather up vibrations, and only when those vibrations are quick enough do I hear. If my threshold of hearing were a little lower, I could hear many other disturbing noises; but as it is, I can go through my normal activities without being the least bothered by them.

Get a nervous system whose threshold is very low, and you have a person whose life is abject torture wherever he goes. What is the purpose of telling that person to cheer up? He is tortured by things we never hear, discomforted by things we never feel. He cannot help being nervous.

Shall we preach our temperament of cheerfulness to such a person? The doctrine of cheerfulness is all very well among people who are cheerful; but what about the folks who cannot be cheerful—who, through no fault of their own, have a nervous threshold so low that life is a misery?

Prayer Thought: O God, I want to be considerate of people who have nervous problems. Forgive me when I get impatient with them.

SUGGESTED READING: Psalm 71:14–24