ENDURANCE LEARNED IN DEPENDENCE

^[p. 70] ENDURANCE LEARNED IN DEPENDENCE

It is, I am sure, very trying about ————, but you would not like the words said to Ephraim to be applied to you, “Let him alone”. It is the continued and varied pressure which tests. “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience” (James 1: 2, 3). Generally, we are looking for relief, and not so much for endurance which is the result of the trying of your faith. To live ever in dependence on God is the great lesson here. This was the manner of our Lord’s life here. “Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8: 3). It is a great thing to learn faith: that is, simple dependence on God. The more natural resources you have, the more difficult it is to be wholly dependent on God. Still it will comfort you much to be assured that the Lord is teaching you dependence on Himself, and it is very remarkable that faith is necessary in everything. “The just shall live by faith”, not only in your circumstances, but in everything. I believe the Lord allows many things to happen on purpose to make us feel our need of Him. The more you find Him in your sorrows or wants the more you will be attached to Him and drawn away from this place where the sorrows are, to Him in the place where He is. The Lord comfort you, and give you to know His sympathy all the way down from heaven, so that your heart may be drawn up to Him by the very support which He vouchsafes to you.