THE DIVINE COMFORTER
THE MYSTERY OF SORROW
We live in a world of sunshine and shadow, of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, of life and death, of realized hopes and disappointed expectations. Choose as we may, we must drink the bitter as well as the sweet of life’s experiences. We ask many times, Why is this? Why this strange and mysterious anomaly of good and ill? By no human logic are we able to solve life’s problems.
Life’s web seems tangled at best, the pattern confused and conflicting. But how comforting to believe that the hand of the divine Weaver is shaping the design, and that which appears so confusing now will give place to beautiful proportion and harmonious symmetry. This is our hope in death’s dark hour.
God watches over His own. He stands unseen in the shadow, but His hand guides the divine shuttle. He will cause every experience of life to work for His own glory and for the good of His children.
The Human and the Divine
We are sometimes inclined to view the questions of life from a human perspective. Present plans, present pleasure, or present convenience dictates our choice. Not so with God. He chooses not for our temporary pleasure or profit but for our ultimate good. He takes into account, not the few short hours of this present life alone, but the sweep of eternity. We may say, indeed, in the words of the poet:
“Our times are in God’s hands, and all our days Are as our needs: for shadow as for sun,
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike Our thanks are due, since that is best which is.”
“When thou passes through the waters, 1 will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee: when thou walks through the fire, thou shall not he burned; neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee.” Isaiah 43:2.
The trials of life constitute the divine crucible. God “shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Malachi 3:3. He who has never known sorrow in his life has never known the sweet companionship of the divine Comforter.
I believe that God has a "song" to teach us, and when we have learned it amid the deep shadows of affliction, we can "sing it" ever afterward
"Now we see through a glass, darkly.” 1 Corinthians 13:2. We cannot reason out why we are guided over the path we travel. But sometime all shall be made clear.
We can trust that all the perplexities of life’s experience will then be made plain. Where to us have appeared only confusion and disappointment, broken purposes and thwarted plans, will be seen a grand, overruling, victorious purpose, a divine harmony. God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning.
The ills we see, The mysteries of sorrow deep and long,
The dark enigmas of permitted wrong, Have all one key;
This strange, sad world is but our Father’s school;
All chance and change His love shall overrule.
What though today
Thou cannot trace at all the hidden reason
For His strange dealings through the trial season?
Trust and obey;
In after life and light all shall be plain and clear.”
Pain and sorrow, if patiently borne, “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.” And thus we become companions of Christ in His sufferings. Sorrow and suffering reveal to us more fully God’s
tender love. And in the comfort we receive we are better able to comfort others who are in any trouble with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
God’s Attributes
It is well for us to consider, in the hours of trial and darkness through which we are called upon to pass, what there is in God’s character that constitutes a basis for faith and confidence. The Father in heaven
is not incompetent to care for His own. As we study His attributes, there are three which stand out in bold relief from all the others: His infinite power, His infinite wisdom, and His infinite love. Consider each of
these for a moment. He possesses all power in heaven and in earth. He is the direct or indirect cause of every energy and impulse in the universe. Indeed, it was by His mighty power that the universe came into existence.
He spoke, and it was. “He commanded, and it stood fast.” Out of nothing His word created the material worlds. Added to this infinite power, is His infinite wisdom. With God there is no experiment. He knows the end from the beginning. He cannot learn by experience. But the third attribute is necessary to complete the trinity. God possesses infinite love as well, and in this He has given us the supreme evidence. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for poor, lost humanity, yea, more, for a race of rebels. And to this statement the apostle adds, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32. God’s love enlists for us the exercise of His infinite power and His infinite wisdom. He is too wise to err, too good to be unkind.
This trinity of attributes constitutes the foundation for abiding trust. We may therefore confidently believe that we are in His hands, and that He will choose for us, such experiences in life as He sees will be for our eternal good. As to the value of sorrow in our lives, I believe that our sorrows do not spring out of the ground. God ‘does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. When He permits trials and afflictions, it is for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. If received in faith, the trial that seems so bitter and hard to bear will prove a blessing. The cruel blow that blights the joys of earth will be the means of turning our eyes to heaven. How many there are who would never have known Jesus had not sorrow led them to seek comfort in Him.
The trials of life are God’s workmen, to remove the impurities and roughness from our character. Their hewing, squaring, and chiseling, their burnishing and polishing, is a painful process; it is hard to be
pressed down to the grinding wheel. But the stone is brought forth prepared to fill its place in the heavenly temple. Upon no useless material does the Master bestow such careful, thorough work. Only His precious
stones are polished after the similitude of a palace.
It appears many times to us in our afflictions that God has withdrawn Himself; but if our eyes could be opened, we should see Him standing back in the shadow and watching over His own. He is watching to see that the fires of affliction and trial do their appointed work. His great heart of love is touched with sympathy in all our afflictions. The trial which seems so hard today is working out His glorious purpose in our lives, and it will bring to us comfort and courage.
Happy is the man whom God corrected. He makes sore, and binds up; He wounded, and His hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. To every stricken one, Jesus comes with the ministry of healing. The life of bereavement, pain, and suffering may be brightened by precious revealing of His presence.
God would not have us remain pressed down by dumb sorrow, with sore and breaking hearts. He would have us look up, and behold His dear face of love. The blessed Savior stands by many whose eyes are so blinded by tears that they do not discern Him. He longs to clasp our hands, to have us look to Him in simple faith, permitting Him to guide us. His heart is open to our grief, our sorrows, and our trials. He has loved us with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness compassed us about. We may keep the heart stayed upon Him, and meditate upon His loving-kindness all the day. He will lift the soul above the daily sorrow and perplexity, into a realm of peace.
To toil, to strive, to labor, and to lift, .For love of God and good of fellow man, Is noble worth. But patiently to rest and wait awhile, To find in pain and disappointed hope His guiding hand and way of perfect peace, To bow in faith to His well-ordered plan Even though His plan may cut athwart our own, Is nobler still.
TURNING THE BITTER TO SWEET
THE children of Israel had been delivered from the power of Pharaoh. A path had been made for them through the Red Sea, and they had passed over on dry land. The Egyptians attempting to follow them were overthrown in the flood of waters. This marvelous deliverance should have set at rest every doubt. The manifestation of God’s tender mercy and marvelous power should have enlisted the fullest consecration and deepest trust on the part of every soul, and no doubt many thought that never again in their experience would they doubt the Lord.
When Moses and the children of Israel sang the song of deliverance, when Miriam and all the women of Israel, with instruments of music, engaged in their triumphal dance, no doubt every heart was filled with rejoicing. From Egyptian servitude, with its consequent depression and darkness, they had been raised by the interposition of God to the heights of triumph and joy. But they did not fully fathom the deeper underlying motives and purposes in their lives. They could rejoice in the hour of prosperity and success, but it yet remained to be seen whether they could carry that rejoicing into the hour of trial and difficulty.
They were brought in their journeying into the wilderness of Shur, and for three days they traveled without finding water. Finally they reached Marah. Here was water in abundance, and in eagerness they welcomed it. But hope was turned to disappointment; for the water was bitter, and the people were unable to drink it. This was an opportunity for them to demonstrate their faith in God, but here in the hour of darkness they failed. The record is that the people murmured against Moses, and in murmuring against Moses, they murmured against God and His providence. In his distress Moses cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree which, when it was cast into the water, turned the bitter into sweet.
Failure to Trust God
God had brought His people to this testing time in order to prove them. He knew the character of the waters before He directed their journey thither. He knew what He would do in order to quench their
burning thirst. How much better it would have been had Israel trusted to His providence! How blessed would have been their experience had they in confidence stood by with cheerful hearts and composed spirits, waiting for God to work out His purpose, and seeing how He would deliver them from their extremity! Surely, He who had visited upon Egypt the plagues of His wrath who had made it possible for them to escape from their oppressors, and had cleaved for them the path through the Red Sea, was able in His own way to furnish water to satisfy their needs.
The lesson is for us. Many times in our experiences we are brought to Marah’s brink. We thirst; and when we attempt to supply our need, the water is bitter. These experiences come to us as God’s proving and testing, the same as to Israel of old. How many times do we, like them, murmur and complain. O, let us learn the lesson of confidence and trust, of waiting for God to work things out in His own way and time! If we trust Him, He will literally verify His promise to us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose..” Romans 8:28. Let us, then, commit to Him the tracings of our pathway; let us trust Him to go before us as before ancient Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, we patiently following where
He leads. The Voice of Infinite Love. Many and varied are the means and agencies employed by the Master to teach us needed lessons. He speaks to us through His written Word, and through the impressions of His Holy Spirit, through the counsels of friends and even through the criticisms of enemies. He speaks to us in the book of nature. The smiling sunshine, the gently blowing breeze, the merry songsters in the leafy treetops, the variegated flowers and foliage-all bring messages of the Father’s love. And no less does He speak to us through the power of the elements and through life’s bitter experiences. The judgments of God bring messages of warning to the impenitent. They proclaim in thunder tones His invitation to repentance. Life’s sorrows are His pruning shears. Bitter trials become His furnace of purification, burning out of the human heart the lust of envy and the corroding canker of malice and jealousy.
Let us seek to discern the voice of Infinite Love speaking to us in every experience which befalls us. Let us seek to learn the lessons which these experiences would teach. If rightly regarded, they will give us largeness of heart, tenderness of spirit, breadth of mind. They will soften, subdue, and ennoble. They will teach us lessons which we way pass on to others in ministry to their need. The "songs" which we learn to "sing" in the darkness and in the midst of trial will represent in us an experience of grace which we could obtain in no other way.
Enemies may oppose us, evil tongues may speak against us, fire may consume our dwellings, disease may afflict our bodies, death even may enter our homes. Let us not complain; let us not find fault with God, but believe that as we trust our cases in His hands, He will work everything out for our eternal good, and will give us in this life only the treatment that He, as a wise Physician, sees our cases need in order to fit us for the life to come. If we trust Him, He will turn for us, in every experience, the bitter into sweet.
Does God Care?
Does God care for us in our trials and affliction? Does He care if we are hungry and cold? if we are sick and discouraged? Many in the world today are asking these questions. We can say unequivocally, Yes, God does care. Of Israel of old we are given the definite assurance that “in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Isaiah 63:9.
We serve the same compassionate, merciful heavenly Father today, and we are assured by the apostle Peter that we are to cast all our care upon Him, “for he cares for you.”
The Master once assumed the nature of mankind and lived upon this earth. In the days of His flesh, the apostle assures us, He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Christ knew what it was to be hungry; He knew what it was to be weary; He knew even the power of darkness and depression, if not discouragement. See Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading with the Father, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” but pleading h divine resignation that He adds, “Not as I will, with such but as thou wilt.” Behold Him on the cross, crying out from the darkness that enshrouds Him, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Because of this human experience, this kinship with us in our trials and difficulties, the apostle admonishes us, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16.
I thank God that we serve not an unfeeling image of wood or stone; we serve a loving Father, whose heart throbs with pleasure at the joyful laugh of a little child, and whose eye melts in pitying tenderness over the trials and afflictions of His disciples. If we can only realize this blessed truth and believe that the Lord is just as near us in the darkness as in the light, in the hour of pain as in the hour of pleasure, it will lighten our load of grief, it will make us brave and strong in the day of test, and it will give
us the spirit of thankfulness even in affliction. Because we shall believe that the loving Father is working out some needed experience that could not come otherwise.
Christ’s Companionship
Christ desires to become our companion in every one of life’s experiences. He desires to come so near to us that we shall feel the assurance of His presence and be able to say with the patriarch Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the car: but now mine eye sees thee.” Job 42:5.
So let me say to the sorrowing one, to the one suffering affliction, to the one who is sick and discouraged, to the one who is in want, who is cold and hungry, God cares, and in His own good time He will turn the tide and work deliverance.
Do you ask, If He cares, why then does He permit the sorrow, the sickness, the hunger, the distress? I answer, I cannot tell specifically, but I have such faith in His character and in His dealings with the human family that I know He orders every experience that comes into the lives of His trusting children for their good. He sees that the furnace of affliction will do for them what could be accomplished in no other way. He bruises that He may bind up again; He wounds that He may heal. He causes earthly friends to withdraw their support that His child may be driven closer to Him. He allows pain and sickness, perhaps, that we may sympathize with others who are similarly afflicted. I know not why in any particular instance God sends trial and affliction, but I do know, as I have said, that God is good and He is wise; He is too good to be unkind and too wise to err. And if you and I will but commit our cases into His hands and co-operate with His providence as they are revealed in life, we shall find that the words of the apostle Paul will be verified in our experience, that all things work together for good to them that love God.” It is for you and me to prove true in the testing.
And so, dear one, do not repine. Do not grow rebellious over things you cannot help. Strive manfully and bravely to better your situation, seek God for wisdom to enable you to do this, seek the counsel of friends to see whether they have anything to suggest, and then patiently trust God for all the outcome. He will not forget you or forsake you. He remembered righteous Lot in the destruction of the cities of the plain, and took him to a place of safety. He remembered Jeremiah when he was cast into the
loathsome pit, and rescued him from his enemies. He remembered Daniel when by the unrighteous decree of the king he was cast into the den of lions, and shut their mouths so that they did not hurt him. He
remembered the three worthies who were cast into the fiery furnace, and brought them out without the smell of fire upon their garments.
And He is the same wonder-working God today, mighty in power, merciful and loving in spirit, and interested now as fully as ever before in all the experiences of His loved ones. He may permit the fires of the furnace to do their work in your life and mine, but He will temper the heat. The dross may be consumed, but the gold of character will be purified and made more resplendent.
God cares; let us trust Him.
“When thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walked through the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
SOMETIME WE SHALL UNDERSTAND
Life presents many mysterious problems. We look out into the great universe of God, and how many things there are that we cannot fathom or understand. The heavens above and the depths beneath are beyond our comprehension. The Scriptures of truth contain mysteries. The lives of others are as closed books to our study, and even our own experience has dark and unexplained chapters. We cannot understand why certain things have befallen us, why we have been called upon to pass through certain trials, why certain influences have shaped and molded our experiences. We have been bereft of friends; we have suffered sickness; property has been swept away; those we loved and trusted have apparently turned against us. Our fellows have counted our best efforts for naught, misjudged our motives; and it has seemed at times, as it did to Jacob of old, that our experiences were against us.
To the trusting child of God there is comfort in the thought that the darkness will sometime give place to the light; that the crooked places will be made straight and the dark places plain. Sometime, if not in this world then in the world to come, we shall have the privilege of viewing questions from the standpoint of heaven’s exalted plane. We shall see, in so far as finite can see through infinite eyes, as God sees. We shall measure with the great measuring rule of divine wisdom.
The apostle Paul refers to this time and to this experience in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians when he says: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
A Glorious Heritage
This more perfect knowledge is to be a part of the glorious heritage of the children of God in the ages to come. How blessed it will he to see with undimmed eyes! How sweet to carry about with us the consciousness that our associates are in sympathy with our purposes and understand our motives! We shall not see through a veil, dimly, but face to face. We shall know even as we are known. Some of the hard, trying experiences through which we have been called upon to pass will then be explained by our own blessed Master.
I believe that Christ will lead His redeemed ones beside the river of life, and will explain to them all that perplexed them in this world. The mysteries of grace will unfold before them. Where their finite minds discerned only confusion and broken purposes, they will see the most perfect and beautiful harmony.
In view of this experience which awaits us, let us be patient. We are now in God’s great training school. By the trials and difficulties that we meet He is endeavoring to fit us for a place in His coming kingdom. The trials are His workmen. By them our rough characters are chiseled and fashioned and molded, after the divine similitude. The rough, sharp comets are taken off, and we are fitted to become beautiful stones in the temple of our God.
By faith we may know, as did the apostle Paul, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Again and again human reasoning will deny the truth of this statement as applied to our
personal experience; but it is for us, through God’s grace, to permit faith to cast down reasoning, and to build our hopes, not upon the unstable foundation of our own philosophy, but upon the sure word and
promises of God. We may not understand how divine omnipotence can shape the experiences of life so that they will work out our eternal good, but our great Father of wisdom and love has pledged His word that this
shall be done for us, as far as we will patiently submit our cases into His hands.
Then let us not repine and mourn and complain. Let us be patient through the purifying process, trusting that in the glorious future we shall understand all life’s mysteries, and know why God has led us over the road we have traveled and brought us through the experiences which have befallen us.
In the following song the poet has beautifully expressed the thought and the hope that should comfort our hearts throughout life’s journey.
“The desert way He sometimes leads us,
The simple manna that He feeds us,
The humble work for which He needs us,
We may not always understand;
But while for Canaan gardens yearning,
God’s lessons patiently we’re learning,
The fiery Pillar still is burning
He leads, He leads;
We need not understand.
“The bondage which we’ve left, repenting,
The foe that follows unrelenting,
The deep, wide sea our flight preventing,
We need not always understand;
But we’ve a Father wise and loving,
Let faith His promises be proving;
Stand still and see the waters moving
He rules, He rules; We need not understand.
“Why to the bitter fountains guided,
When it was for crystal springs we chided,
Nor knew we prayed with heart divided,
We may not always understand;
But by the lonely pool of Marah,
The living water seemed dearer,
And Christ, the riveted Rock, is nearer
Life flows, life flows, We need not understand.
“And when we reach the Jordan River,
Where day’s last shadows faintly quiver,
O may the arms of the Life-giver Bear safely to the promised land!
Till then we trust the One who knows,
No storm forbidden ever blew, No tear unnoticed ever flowed
He knows, He knows; Sometime we’ll understand.”
Beauty for Ashes
Out of the shadows comes song, Out of the storm a calm;
Out of affliction, strength and poise, Out of life’s bitter, balm.
Out of our failings, out of our falls, Pity for others’ shame;
Out of our hunger for tenderness, Love and a little less blame.
Out of our darkness springs light To brighten another’s way;
Out of our battles, lost or won, Strength for a brother’s fray.
Out of the gray of a clouded sky, Falls the cooling rain;
Out of our sorrow, out of our woe, Healing for other’s pain.
Out of the tangled and broken threads, Out of your life and mine,
The Master weaves a beauteous thing, After His own design.
BERTHA D. MARTIN
We live in a world of sunshine and shadow, of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain, of life and death, of realized hopes and disappointed expectations. Choose as we may, we must drink the bitter as well as the sweet of life’s experiences. We ask many times, Why is this? Why this strange and mysterious anomaly of good and ill? By no human logic are we able to solve life’s problems.
Life’s web seems tangled at best, the pattern confused and conflicting. But how comforting to believe that the hand of the divine Weaver is shaping the design, and that which appears so confusing now will give place to beautiful proportion and harmonious symmetry. This is our hope in death’s dark hour.
God watches over His own. He stands unseen in the shadow, but His hand guides the divine shuttle. He will cause every experience of life to work for His own glory and for the good of His children.
The Human and the Divine
We are sometimes inclined to view the questions of life from a human perspective. Present plans, present pleasure, or present convenience dictates our choice. Not so with God. He chooses not for our temporary pleasure or profit but for our ultimate good. He takes into account, not the few short hours of this present life alone, but the sweep of eternity. We may say, indeed, in the words of the poet:
“Our times are in God’s hands, and all our days Are as our needs: for shadow as for sun,
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike Our thanks are due, since that is best which is.”
“When thou passes through the waters, 1 will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee: when thou walks through the fire, thou shall not he burned; neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee.” Isaiah 43:2.
The trials of life constitute the divine crucible. God “shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Malachi 3:3. He who has never known sorrow in his life has never known the sweet companionship of the divine Comforter.
I believe that God has a "song" to teach us, and when we have learned it amid the deep shadows of affliction, we can "sing it" ever afterward
"Now we see through a glass, darkly.” 1 Corinthians 13:2. We cannot reason out why we are guided over the path we travel. But sometime all shall be made clear.
We can trust that all the perplexities of life’s experience will then be made plain. Where to us have appeared only confusion and disappointment, broken purposes and thwarted plans, will be seen a grand, overruling, victorious purpose, a divine harmony. God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning.
The ills we see, The mysteries of sorrow deep and long,
The dark enigmas of permitted wrong, Have all one key;
This strange, sad world is but our Father’s school;
All chance and change His love shall overrule.
What though today
Thou cannot trace at all the hidden reason
For His strange dealings through the trial season?
Trust and obey;
In after life and light all shall be plain and clear.”
Pain and sorrow, if patiently borne, “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.” And thus we become companions of Christ in His sufferings. Sorrow and suffering reveal to us more fully God’s
tender love. And in the comfort we receive we are better able to comfort others who are in any trouble with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
God’s Attributes
It is well for us to consider, in the hours of trial and darkness through which we are called upon to pass, what there is in God’s character that constitutes a basis for faith and confidence. The Father in heaven
is not incompetent to care for His own. As we study His attributes, there are three which stand out in bold relief from all the others: His infinite power, His infinite wisdom, and His infinite love. Consider each of
these for a moment. He possesses all power in heaven and in earth. He is the direct or indirect cause of every energy and impulse in the universe. Indeed, it was by His mighty power that the universe came into existence.
He spoke, and it was. “He commanded, and it stood fast.” Out of nothing His word created the material worlds. Added to this infinite power, is His infinite wisdom. With God there is no experiment. He knows the end from the beginning. He cannot learn by experience. But the third attribute is necessary to complete the trinity. God possesses infinite love as well, and in this He has given us the supreme evidence. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for poor, lost humanity, yea, more, for a race of rebels. And to this statement the apostle adds, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Romans 8:32. God’s love enlists for us the exercise of His infinite power and His infinite wisdom. He is too wise to err, too good to be unkind.
This trinity of attributes constitutes the foundation for abiding trust. We may therefore confidently believe that we are in His hands, and that He will choose for us, such experiences in life as He sees will be for our eternal good. As to the value of sorrow in our lives, I believe that our sorrows do not spring out of the ground. God ‘does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. When He permits trials and afflictions, it is for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness. If received in faith, the trial that seems so bitter and hard to bear will prove a blessing. The cruel blow that blights the joys of earth will be the means of turning our eyes to heaven. How many there are who would never have known Jesus had not sorrow led them to seek comfort in Him.
The trials of life are God’s workmen, to remove the impurities and roughness from our character. Their hewing, squaring, and chiseling, their burnishing and polishing, is a painful process; it is hard to be
pressed down to the grinding wheel. But the stone is brought forth prepared to fill its place in the heavenly temple. Upon no useless material does the Master bestow such careful, thorough work. Only His precious
stones are polished after the similitude of a palace.
It appears many times to us in our afflictions that God has withdrawn Himself; but if our eyes could be opened, we should see Him standing back in the shadow and watching over His own. He is watching to see that the fires of affliction and trial do their appointed work. His great heart of love is touched with sympathy in all our afflictions. The trial which seems so hard today is working out His glorious purpose in our lives, and it will bring to us comfort and courage.
Happy is the man whom God corrected. He makes sore, and binds up; He wounded, and His hands make whole. He shall deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. To every stricken one, Jesus comes with the ministry of healing. The life of bereavement, pain, and suffering may be brightened by precious revealing of His presence.
God would not have us remain pressed down by dumb sorrow, with sore and breaking hearts. He would have us look up, and behold His dear face of love. The blessed Savior stands by many whose eyes are so blinded by tears that they do not discern Him. He longs to clasp our hands, to have us look to Him in simple faith, permitting Him to guide us. His heart is open to our grief, our sorrows, and our trials. He has loved us with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness compassed us about. We may keep the heart stayed upon Him, and meditate upon His loving-kindness all the day. He will lift the soul above the daily sorrow and perplexity, into a realm of peace.
To toil, to strive, to labor, and to lift, .For love of God and good of fellow man, Is noble worth. But patiently to rest and wait awhile, To find in pain and disappointed hope His guiding hand and way of perfect peace, To bow in faith to His well-ordered plan Even though His plan may cut athwart our own, Is nobler still.
TURNING THE BITTER TO SWEET
THE children of Israel had been delivered from the power of Pharaoh. A path had been made for them through the Red Sea, and they had passed over on dry land. The Egyptians attempting to follow them were overthrown in the flood of waters. This marvelous deliverance should have set at rest every doubt. The manifestation of God’s tender mercy and marvelous power should have enlisted the fullest consecration and deepest trust on the part of every soul, and no doubt many thought that never again in their experience would they doubt the Lord.
When Moses and the children of Israel sang the song of deliverance, when Miriam and all the women of Israel, with instruments of music, engaged in their triumphal dance, no doubt every heart was filled with rejoicing. From Egyptian servitude, with its consequent depression and darkness, they had been raised by the interposition of God to the heights of triumph and joy. But they did not fully fathom the deeper underlying motives and purposes in their lives. They could rejoice in the hour of prosperity and success, but it yet remained to be seen whether they could carry that rejoicing into the hour of trial and difficulty.
They were brought in their journeying into the wilderness of Shur, and for three days they traveled without finding water. Finally they reached Marah. Here was water in abundance, and in eagerness they welcomed it. But hope was turned to disappointment; for the water was bitter, and the people were unable to drink it. This was an opportunity for them to demonstrate their faith in God, but here in the hour of darkness they failed. The record is that the people murmured against Moses, and in murmuring against Moses, they murmured against God and His providence. In his distress Moses cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree which, when it was cast into the water, turned the bitter into sweet.
Failure to Trust God
God had brought His people to this testing time in order to prove them. He knew the character of the waters before He directed their journey thither. He knew what He would do in order to quench their
burning thirst. How much better it would have been had Israel trusted to His providence! How blessed would have been their experience had they in confidence stood by with cheerful hearts and composed spirits, waiting for God to work out His purpose, and seeing how He would deliver them from their extremity! Surely, He who had visited upon Egypt the plagues of His wrath who had made it possible for them to escape from their oppressors, and had cleaved for them the path through the Red Sea, was able in His own way to furnish water to satisfy their needs.
The lesson is for us. Many times in our experiences we are brought to Marah’s brink. We thirst; and when we attempt to supply our need, the water is bitter. These experiences come to us as God’s proving and testing, the same as to Israel of old. How many times do we, like them, murmur and complain. O, let us learn the lesson of confidence and trust, of waiting for God to work things out in His own way and time! If we trust Him, He will literally verify His promise to us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose..” Romans 8:28. Let us, then, commit to Him the tracings of our pathway; let us trust Him to go before us as before ancient Israel in the pillar of cloud and fire, we patiently following where
He leads. The Voice of Infinite Love. Many and varied are the means and agencies employed by the Master to teach us needed lessons. He speaks to us through His written Word, and through the impressions of His Holy Spirit, through the counsels of friends and even through the criticisms of enemies. He speaks to us in the book of nature. The smiling sunshine, the gently blowing breeze, the merry songsters in the leafy treetops, the variegated flowers and foliage-all bring messages of the Father’s love. And no less does He speak to us through the power of the elements and through life’s bitter experiences. The judgments of God bring messages of warning to the impenitent. They proclaim in thunder tones His invitation to repentance. Life’s sorrows are His pruning shears. Bitter trials become His furnace of purification, burning out of the human heart the lust of envy and the corroding canker of malice and jealousy.
Let us seek to discern the voice of Infinite Love speaking to us in every experience which befalls us. Let us seek to learn the lessons which these experiences would teach. If rightly regarded, they will give us largeness of heart, tenderness of spirit, breadth of mind. They will soften, subdue, and ennoble. They will teach us lessons which we way pass on to others in ministry to their need. The "songs" which we learn to "sing" in the darkness and in the midst of trial will represent in us an experience of grace which we could obtain in no other way.
Enemies may oppose us, evil tongues may speak against us, fire may consume our dwellings, disease may afflict our bodies, death even may enter our homes. Let us not complain; let us not find fault with God, but believe that as we trust our cases in His hands, He will work everything out for our eternal good, and will give us in this life only the treatment that He, as a wise Physician, sees our cases need in order to fit us for the life to come. If we trust Him, He will turn for us, in every experience, the bitter into sweet.
Does God Care?
Does God care for us in our trials and affliction? Does He care if we are hungry and cold? if we are sick and discouraged? Many in the world today are asking these questions. We can say unequivocally, Yes, God does care. Of Israel of old we are given the definite assurance that “in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” Isaiah 63:9.
We serve the same compassionate, merciful heavenly Father today, and we are assured by the apostle Peter that we are to cast all our care upon Him, “for he cares for you.”
The Master once assumed the nature of mankind and lived upon this earth. In the days of His flesh, the apostle assures us, He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Christ knew what it was to be hungry; He knew what it was to be weary; He knew even the power of darkness and depression, if not discouragement. See Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, pleading with the Father, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” but pleading h divine resignation that He adds, “Not as I will, with such but as thou wilt.” Behold Him on the cross, crying out from the darkness that enshrouds Him, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” Because of this human experience, this kinship with us in our trials and difficulties, the apostle admonishes us, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16.
I thank God that we serve not an unfeeling image of wood or stone; we serve a loving Father, whose heart throbs with pleasure at the joyful laugh of a little child, and whose eye melts in pitying tenderness over the trials and afflictions of His disciples. If we can only realize this blessed truth and believe that the Lord is just as near us in the darkness as in the light, in the hour of pain as in the hour of pleasure, it will lighten our load of grief, it will make us brave and strong in the day of test, and it will give
us the spirit of thankfulness even in affliction. Because we shall believe that the loving Father is working out some needed experience that could not come otherwise.
Christ’s Companionship
Christ desires to become our companion in every one of life’s experiences. He desires to come so near to us that we shall feel the assurance of His presence and be able to say with the patriarch Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the car: but now mine eye sees thee.” Job 42:5.
So let me say to the sorrowing one, to the one suffering affliction, to the one who is sick and discouraged, to the one who is in want, who is cold and hungry, God cares, and in His own good time He will turn the tide and work deliverance.
Do you ask, If He cares, why then does He permit the sorrow, the sickness, the hunger, the distress? I answer, I cannot tell specifically, but I have such faith in His character and in His dealings with the human family that I know He orders every experience that comes into the lives of His trusting children for their good. He sees that the furnace of affliction will do for them what could be accomplished in no other way. He bruises that He may bind up again; He wounds that He may heal. He causes earthly friends to withdraw their support that His child may be driven closer to Him. He allows pain and sickness, perhaps, that we may sympathize with others who are similarly afflicted. I know not why in any particular instance God sends trial and affliction, but I do know, as I have said, that God is good and He is wise; He is too good to be unkind and too wise to err. And if you and I will but commit our cases into His hands and co-operate with His providence as they are revealed in life, we shall find that the words of the apostle Paul will be verified in our experience, that all things work together for good to them that love God.” It is for you and me to prove true in the testing.
And so, dear one, do not repine. Do not grow rebellious over things you cannot help. Strive manfully and bravely to better your situation, seek God for wisdom to enable you to do this, seek the counsel of friends to see whether they have anything to suggest, and then patiently trust God for all the outcome. He will not forget you or forsake you. He remembered righteous Lot in the destruction of the cities of the plain, and took him to a place of safety. He remembered Jeremiah when he was cast into the
loathsome pit, and rescued him from his enemies. He remembered Daniel when by the unrighteous decree of the king he was cast into the den of lions, and shut their mouths so that they did not hurt him. He
remembered the three worthies who were cast into the fiery furnace, and brought them out without the smell of fire upon their garments.
And He is the same wonder-working God today, mighty in power, merciful and loving in spirit, and interested now as fully as ever before in all the experiences of His loved ones. He may permit the fires of the furnace to do their work in your life and mine, but He will temper the heat. The dross may be consumed, but the gold of character will be purified and made more resplendent.
God cares; let us trust Him.
“When thou passes through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walked through the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
SOMETIME WE SHALL UNDERSTAND
Life presents many mysterious problems. We look out into the great universe of God, and how many things there are that we cannot fathom or understand. The heavens above and the depths beneath are beyond our comprehension. The Scriptures of truth contain mysteries. The lives of others are as closed books to our study, and even our own experience has dark and unexplained chapters. We cannot understand why certain things have befallen us, why we have been called upon to pass through certain trials, why certain influences have shaped and molded our experiences. We have been bereft of friends; we have suffered sickness; property has been swept away; those we loved and trusted have apparently turned against us. Our fellows have counted our best efforts for naught, misjudged our motives; and it has seemed at times, as it did to Jacob of old, that our experiences were against us.
To the trusting child of God there is comfort in the thought that the darkness will sometime give place to the light; that the crooked places will be made straight and the dark places plain. Sometime, if not in this world then in the world to come, we shall have the privilege of viewing questions from the standpoint of heaven’s exalted plane. We shall see, in so far as finite can see through infinite eyes, as God sees. We shall measure with the great measuring rule of divine wisdom.
The apostle Paul refers to this time and to this experience in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians when he says: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
A Glorious Heritage
This more perfect knowledge is to be a part of the glorious heritage of the children of God in the ages to come. How blessed it will he to see with undimmed eyes! How sweet to carry about with us the consciousness that our associates are in sympathy with our purposes and understand our motives! We shall not see through a veil, dimly, but face to face. We shall know even as we are known. Some of the hard, trying experiences through which we have been called upon to pass will then be explained by our own blessed Master.
I believe that Christ will lead His redeemed ones beside the river of life, and will explain to them all that perplexed them in this world. The mysteries of grace will unfold before them. Where their finite minds discerned only confusion and broken purposes, they will see the most perfect and beautiful harmony.
In view of this experience which awaits us, let us be patient. We are now in God’s great training school. By the trials and difficulties that we meet He is endeavoring to fit us for a place in His coming kingdom. The trials are His workmen. By them our rough characters are chiseled and fashioned and molded, after the divine similitude. The rough, sharp comets are taken off, and we are fitted to become beautiful stones in the temple of our God.
By faith we may know, as did the apostle Paul, that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Again and again human reasoning will deny the truth of this statement as applied to our
personal experience; but it is for us, through God’s grace, to permit faith to cast down reasoning, and to build our hopes, not upon the unstable foundation of our own philosophy, but upon the sure word and
promises of God. We may not understand how divine omnipotence can shape the experiences of life so that they will work out our eternal good, but our great Father of wisdom and love has pledged His word that this
shall be done for us, as far as we will patiently submit our cases into His hands.
Then let us not repine and mourn and complain. Let us be patient through the purifying process, trusting that in the glorious future we shall understand all life’s mysteries, and know why God has led us over the road we have traveled and brought us through the experiences which have befallen us.
In the following song the poet has beautifully expressed the thought and the hope that should comfort our hearts throughout life’s journey.
“The desert way He sometimes leads us,
The simple manna that He feeds us,
The humble work for which He needs us,
We may not always understand;
But while for Canaan gardens yearning,
God’s lessons patiently we’re learning,
The fiery Pillar still is burning
He leads, He leads;
We need not understand.
“The bondage which we’ve left, repenting,
The foe that follows unrelenting,
The deep, wide sea our flight preventing,
We need not always understand;
But we’ve a Father wise and loving,
Let faith His promises be proving;
Stand still and see the waters moving
He rules, He rules; We need not understand.
“Why to the bitter fountains guided,
When it was for crystal springs we chided,
Nor knew we prayed with heart divided,
We may not always understand;
But by the lonely pool of Marah,
The living water seemed dearer,
And Christ, the riveted Rock, is nearer
Life flows, life flows, We need not understand.
“And when we reach the Jordan River,
Where day’s last shadows faintly quiver,
O may the arms of the Life-giver Bear safely to the promised land!
Till then we trust the One who knows,
No storm forbidden ever blew, No tear unnoticed ever flowed
He knows, He knows; Sometime we’ll understand.”
Beauty for Ashes
Out of the shadows comes song, Out of the storm a calm;
Out of affliction, strength and poise, Out of life’s bitter, balm.
Out of our failings, out of our falls, Pity for others’ shame;
Out of our hunger for tenderness, Love and a little less blame.
Out of our darkness springs light To brighten another’s way;
Out of our battles, lost or won, Strength for a brother’s fray.
Out of the gray of a clouded sky, Falls the cooling rain;
Out of our sorrow, out of our woe, Healing for other’s pain.
Out of the tangled and broken threads, Out of your life and mine,
The Master weaves a beauteous thing, After His own design.
BERTHA D. MARTIN
posted by Michael A. Redwine at Saturday, January 14, 2006
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