| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 3 |
Page 4 |
We look upon trouble as misfortune. We say the life is being destroyed that is passing through adversity. But the truth we find in the Bible does not so represent suffering. God is a repairer and restorer of the hurt and ruined life. He takes the reed that is bruised and by his gentle skill makes it whole again, until it grows into fairest beauty. When a branch of a tree is injured, the whole tree begins at once to send of its life to the wounded part to restore it. When a violet is crushed by a passing foot, air and sun and cloud and dew all at once begin their ministry of healing, giving of their life to bind up the wound of the little flower. So Heaven does with human hearts when they are wounded. The love, pity, and grace of God minister sweet blessing of comfort and healing to restore that which is broken.
Much of the most beautiful life in this world comes out of sorrow. As “fair flowers bloom upon rough stalks,” so many of the fairest flowers of human life grow upon the rough stalks of suffering. We take our place with the beloved disciple on the other side, and we see that those who in heaven wear the whitest robes, and sing the loudest songs of victory, are they who have come out of great tribulation. Heaven’s highest places are filling, not from earth’s homes of glad festivity and tearless joy, but from its chambers of pain, its vales of struggle where the battle is hard, and its scenes of sorrow, where pale cheeks are wet with tears, and where hearts are broken. The God of the Bible is the God of the bowed down, whom he lifts up into his strength. Earth’s failures are not failures if God were in them.
The same is true of spiritual life. God is the God of those who fail. Not that he loves those that stumble and fall better than those who walk erect without stumbling; but he helps them more. The weak ones who believe in Christ get more of his grace than those who are strong. There is a special divine promise, which says, “My divine power is made perfect in weakness.” That is, we are not weakest when we think ourselves weakest, nor are we strongest when we think ourselves strong. God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
Human consciousness of weakness gives God room to work. Human power is made perfect in weakness. Human consciousness of weakness gives God room for work. He cannot with our strength, because in our self-conceit we make no room for him. Before he can put his strength into us, we must confess that we have no strength of our own. When we are conscious of our own insufficiency, we are ready to receive of the divine sufficiency. Thus our very weakness is an element of strength. Weakness is an empty cup that God fills with his own life.
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