Show Me What Is Lovely

“for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” — Zechariah 2:8 (ASV)

The story about Hyde that may have done the most good is the one that shows him at his worst. Around 1910 he was burdened about an Indian pastor whose spiritual life seemed to have gone cold, and whose congregation had gone cold with him. So Hyde went into his room to pray for him. He began, “O Father, thou knowest how cold —“

He never finished the sentence. In his friends' telling, it was as if a hand had been laid on his lips, and a voice said to him sternly: “He that toucheth him, toucheth the apple of mine eye.” Hyde was horrified. He cried out, “Forgive me, Father, in that I have been an accuser of the brethren before thee!”

“The accuser of the brethren” is one of the Bible's names for Satan. Hyde had come to do the work of someone who prays for others, and found he had been doing the devil's work instead. It's a trap for people who pray. We bring someone to God out of concern, and before we know it we're listing their faults.

Then Hyde did the important thing. He confessed it, and he remembered Philippians 4:8: “whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report … think on these things.” So he prayed a new prayer: “Father, show me what things are lovely and of good report in my brother's life.” The answer came “like a flash.” The pastor had given up everything for Christ and had suffered for it at the hands of his own relatives. He had worked hard for years, handled a difficult congregation with tact, healed many quarrels, and was a good husband. Hyde spent his whole time of prayer thanking God for him. “He could not recall a single petition,” his friend wrote, “nothing but thanksgiving!”

When Hyde went back down from the hills, he heard that the pastor had just received a great spiritual uplift, at about the time Hyde had been praising God for him. “While he was praising, God was blessing.” That isn't a formula that forces God's hand, and Hyde wouldn't have claimed one. But criticism sees people as problems. Thanksgiving sees them as God's work in progress.

Praise ran all through Hyde's life. One morning, touring the villages, he woke with a headache so bad he couldn't lift his head. He couldn't preach. But he thanked God “for the love that had permitted that headache,” and had his bed carried into the shade. The village women, who had never come forward although some of their husbands had been baptized, came to sympathise with the sick missionary. He talked with them about Christ, and they decided there and then to be baptized. His circle of friends had a phrase for this kind of thing: “Praising God through shut teeth.”

Listen to how you talk about people who annoy you, even in your prayers. Does it sound more like praying for them or like a list of charges against them? A close friend of Hyde's said he “never heard him criticizing any persons, though he could vehemently denounce sin.” This doesn't mean pretending wrong things are fine. It means any correcting starts from thankfulness.

One thing to do this week: pick the person who irritates you most right now and pray Hyde's prayer about them by name: “Father, show me what things are lovely and of good report” in their life. Write down three things. Then thank God for each one, without adding a “but.”