Rest and be Thankful
A. K. H. Boyd, D. D. Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you are called in one body; and be you thankful. There is a picturesque tract of the Western Highlands of Scotland, in passing through which the traveller has to ascend a long winding path, very steep, rough, and lonely, leading up a wild and desolate glen. The savage and awful grandeur of the scenery, with its bare hills and rocks, is hardly equalled in this country. But if the traveller goes up that glen on foot (and it is hardly possible to go up it otherwise), his appreciation of the scene around him is gradually overborne by the sense of pure physical fatigue. Not without a great strain upon limbs and heart, can that rugged way be traversed. At last' you reach a ridge, whence the road descends steeply on the other side of the hill. You have ended your climbing, and you may now begin to go down again, from whichever side you come. And there, at this summit, you will find a rude seat of stone, which bears the inscription in deeply-cut letters, "Rest and be thankful." Many weary travellers have rested there: let us trust that a good many have been thankful. We all know that the like name has been given to more than one or two like restingplaces, that it is borne by various seats, at the top of various steep ascents in this country. There is something pleasing, and something touching, in the simple natural piety which has dictated the homely name. He was a heathen who said it, but he spoke well who said, Wheresoever man feels himself in peace and rest, let him think of God, and give thanks to Him. "Rest and be thankful," says the stone in the Highland glen: "Be ye thankful," says St. Paul to the Christians of Colossae. It is not said to whom we are to be thankful. There is a touch of natural piety in the fact, that that does not need to be said. That is taken for granted. We all know who it is that is the Giver of all good: and when we are told, generally, to be thankful, of course we know to whom! Resting at the summit of the mountain path, it is not to the man who erected that seat for the weary traveller: though it is fit and right that he should be kindly thought of while we are enjoying the effect of his work, yet we are to look beyond him to a cause above him. He erected that seat, acting (as it were) for God: every mortal who does a kind and good deed, in a right spirit, is acting for God, and in God's name: and he went away when his work was done, asking of the wayfarer, putting his request on record with a pen of iron upon the stone, — that for whatever comfort and rest might be experienced there, the wayfarer might bestow his thanks in the right quarter. And St. Paul does just the same! (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. WEB: And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.