“我必使我的众山成为大道。”(赛49章11节)
神常常利用障碍来完成他的旨意,所以我们各人在生活上都会遇到高山——恫吓我们,阻碍我们属灵生活前进的人们;苛刻的要求;性情不相投的职业;肉体上的刺;每天的十字架——我们常常想:只要这些东西除去了,我们的生活就会变得更纯粹,更温柔,更圣洁。
“无知的人哪…你们的心……太迟钝了!。”(路24章25节)这正是成功的条件;这些正是神放在我们生活中叫我们得到恩惠和德行的方法。也许你现在有一件不能忍受的试炼;你一看见就逃避,就闪躲,当作你成功的障碍,你以为它一除去,你就能立刻得到释放和胜利。
亲爱的读者啊,事实并不是这样!当试炼一停止的时候,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试炼中求得的。
回去容忍吧!做一个有分于主的忍耐的人!战胜在他里面的一切试炼!要记得你生活上的困恼和烦扰,没有一点是徒然的。它们都是神的山——是神将它们放在那里的。我们知道“神明白智慧的所在。因他鉴察直到地极,遍观普天之下。”(伯28章23-24节);当我们走到山脚下的时候我们就要看见智慧的道路了。——梅尔(Meyer)
"I will make all my mountains a way." (Isa. 49:11.)
GOD will make obstacles serve His purpose. We all nave 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."