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「我為選民凡事忍耐，叫他們也可以得著……救恩，和永遠的榮耀。」（聖經提摩太後書二章 10 節）
當約伯坐在灰燼之中，假使他能知道上帝的旨意，究竟如何的時候，他所遭遇的磨難，正是給世人解答這問題，他可能重新鼓起勇氣來。沒有人只為自己活。約伯的生命，只是你我生命擴大的寫照。我們不知道前面有什麼試煉等著我們，但是我們相信一件事：約伯受苦的日子是他被人記念的原因；如果他沒有受過苦難，他的名字決不會被記在聖經上面。── 高力爾（Robert Collyer）
誰不知道我們最大的悲痛，是發生在最幸福的時候！當我們笑容滿面，閑步於春花怒放的庭園時，我們的心常在此時頹唐下沈。
生活愉快逍遙的人，得不到最高屬天的生命，他已有了酬報，而且滿足於所得的酬報，卻是他屬靈生命長進的阻礙；使他本能意願向最高最深之處的發展，亦因此而停滯了；他的生命還沒有和最高貴的喜悅之音産生共鳴，就很快的化爲灰燼了。
「哀慟的人有福了；因為他們必得安慰。」（聖經馬太福音五章 4 節），星光照耀得最亮的時候，是在黑暗的冬夜。龍膽花開得最美麗的地方，是在冰雪的山頂。
只有曾經過憂患的人，能認識「憂患之子」。 ── 選
恐怕你多時沒有看見日光了，好似關在黑暗中間。好幾次你想設法重見天日，可是總被上帝的手所阻擋；；似乎祂故意把你放在黑暗中間。不錯，正是如此；這是出乎祂絕頂的智慧。祂放你在黑暗中，是有祂的美意的。在日光下你會炙成不結果子的焦土。神是你的神，祂知道什麼對你有益，什麼對你有害﹔祂知道什麼時候你需要雲雨，什麼時候你需要日光。祂不會捉弄你的。── 選
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"I endure all things for the sake of God's own people; so that they also may obtain salvation……and with it eternal glory."(2 Tim. 2:10.) (Weymouth.)
IF Job could have known as he sat there in the ashes, bruishing his heart on this problem of providence─that in the trouble that had come upon him he was doing what one man may do to work out the problem for the world, he might again have taken courage. No man lives to himself. Job's life is but your life and mine written in larger text...So, then, though we may not know what trials wait on any of us, we can believe that, as the days in which Job wrestled with his dark maladies are the only days that make him worth remembrance, and but for which his name had never been written in the book of life, so the days through which we struggle, finding no way, but never losing the light, will be the most significant we are called to live. --- Robert Collyer.
Who does not know that our most sorrowful days have been amongst our best? When the face is wreathed in smiles and we trip lightly over meadows bespangled with spring flowers, the heart is often running to waste.
The soul which is always blithe and gay misses the deepest life. It has its reward, and it is satisfied to its measure, though that measure is a very scanty one. But the heart is dwarfed; and the nature, which is capable of the hightest heights, the deepest depths, is undevelped; and life presently burns down to its socket without having known the resonance of the deepest chords of joy.
"Blessed are they that mourn." Stars shine brightest in the long dark night of winter. The gentians show their fairest bloom amid almost inaccessible heights of snow and ice.
God's promises seem to wait for the pressure of pain to trample out their richest juice as in a wine-press. Only those who have sorrowed know how tender is the "Man of Sorrows." --- Selected.
Thou hast but little sunshine, but thy long glooms are wisely appointed thee; for perhaps a stretch of summer weather would have made thee as a parched land and barren wilderness. Thy Lord knows best, and he has the clouds and the sun at His disposal. --- Selected.
"It is a gray day." "Yes, but dinna ye see the patch of blue?" --- Scotch Shoemaker.
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