WHAT TO DO WITH A BURNING CIGAR?
Some years ago, I taught a college-age Sunday school class. There was one young man in the class who often said:
“I am very devoted to the Lord. Because my body is the Lord’s, I want to take care of it. I don’t stay up late, I’m careful what I eat, I exercise regularly, don’t drink, smoke—or chase women.”
We all listened and nodded. It’s good to know that your students take your teaching seriously.
“Good for you,” we would say.
Then, one day at an airport many miles from home, as I was approaching the terminal, I thought I saw this model student standing in front of the building.
Guess what?
He had a cigar in his mouth, puffing away as happy as could be. He didn’t notice me. Since he was in my Sunday school class, I walked up to chat with him. Then he saw me–and did a very strange thing.
He stuck that cigar–still smoking–in his pocket.
Isn’t a pocket a strange place to put a lighted cigar? He wasn’t very happy to see me. One would think he would be glad to see his Sunday school teacher, especially this far from home.
Exactly the opposite.
He was in a hurry to be off.
It was a pitiful, yet amusing, sight. As we talked, the smoke began curling up from his pocket. My pupil was one miserable young man.
What was wrong? He was the architect of his own misery. His conduct didn’t fit his words.
A Scripture verse pointedly summarizes the personal benefit of practicing righteousness:
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness; therefore God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of joy above Thy fellows (Psalms 45:7).
THE FIRST ACT OF CONCEALMENT
A statement by Phillips Brooks gives a positive basis for happy living:
To keep clear of concealment, to keep clear of the need of concealment, to do nothing which he might not do out on the middle of Boston Common at noonday–I cannot say how more and more that seems to me to be the glory of a young man’s life.
It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes. The whole life is different thenceforth. When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects which must not be touched, then the bloom of life is gone. Put off that day as long as possible. Put it off forever if you can. Can your actions stand publicity?