|
「我必使我的眾山成為大道。」（聖經以賽亞書四十九章十一節）
神常利用障礙來完成祂的旨意，所以我們各人在生活上都會遇到高山.... 恫嚇我們，阻礙我們屬靈生活前進的人們，苛刻的要求，性情不相投的職業，肉體上的刺，每天的十字架....我們常想：只要這些東西除去了，我們的生活就會變得更純粹，更溫柔，更聖潔。
「無知的人哪....你們的心....太遲鈍了！」（聖經路加福音二十四章二十五節）這正是成就的條件；這些正是神放在我們生活中叫我們得到恩惠和德行的方法。可能你現在有一件不能忍受的試煉；你一看見就逃避，就閃躲，當作你成就的障礙，你以為它一除去，你就能立刻得到釋放和勝利。
親愛的讀者啊，事實並不是這樣！當試煉一停止的時候，你所能得到的，即是急躁，不是忍耐。忍耐只能在似乎不堪忍受的試煉中求得的 。
回去容忍吧！做一個有分於主的忍耐的人！戰勝在祂裡面的一切試煉！要記得你生活上的困惱和煩擾，沒有一點是徒然的。它們都是神的山....是神將它們放在那裡的。我們知道「神明白智慧的道路，曉得智慧的所在。因祂鑒察直到地極，遍觀普天之下。」（聖經約伯記 二十八章二十三至二十四節）﹔當我們走到山腳下的時候我們就要看見智慧的道路了。── 梅爾(Meyer)
試煉的意義，不單是試驗一件東西的價值，並且是增加這東西的價值；正如同風雨不單是擊打橡樹，並且增加橡樹的堅韌。
*******************************
"I will make all my mountains a way." (Isa. 49:11.)
GOD will make obstacles serve His purpose. We all have mountains in our lives. There are people and things that threaten to bar our progress in the Divine life. Those heavy claims, that uncongenial occupation, that thorn in the flesh, that daily cross-we think that if only these were removed we might live purer, tenderer, holier lives; and often we pray for their removal.
"Oh, fools, and slow of heart!" These are the very conditions of achievement; they have been put into our lives as the means to the very graces and virtues for which we have been praying so long. Thou hast prayed for patience through long years, but there is something that tries thee beyond endurance; thou hast fled from it, evaded it, accounted it an unsurmountable obstacle to the desired attainment, and supposed that its removal would secure thy immediate deliverance and victory.
Not so! Thou wouldest gain only the cessation of temptations to impatience. But this would not be patience. Patience can be acquired only through just such trials as now seem unbearable.
Go back; submit thyself. Claim to be a partaker in the patience of Jesus. Meet thy trials in Him. There is nothing in life which harasses and annoys that may not become subservient to the highest ends. They are His mountains. He puts them there. We know that God will not fail to keep His promise. "God understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;" and when we come to the foot of the mountains, we shall find the way. --- Christ in Isaiah, by Meyer.
"The meaning of trial is not only to test worthiness, but to increase it; as the oak is not only tested by the storms, but toughened by them."
|