HOW TO PASS THROUGH TRIAL
HOW TO PASS THROUGH TRIAL
Since I heard of the many and diverse trials which press upon you, I have wished to write to you. It is not easy to rejoice at such a time, and yet it is at such times, to which you are no stranger, that one is assured [p. 283] of the power of Christ on our behalf. The trying, or testing, of the faith worketh endurance. One wonders how one is borne up, so that the sense of His sustaining power supersedes, and even in its unexpected greatness, diverts the heart from the oppression to the succour vouchsafed. David might naturally feel how the odds were against him as he approached the giant; but ere long the power of God, working in and by him, occupied and engaged him more than the trial. So, also, when he was at Ziklag, he “encouraged himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30: 6); and he soon was more interested in the way God succoured him than weighed down by the affliction which lay upon him.
I have learned a great thing lately. Do not keep your eye on your trial or difficulty, in order to see what God will do for you; but keep your eye on Him, to see what is coming, as if there were no difficulty at all. The trials and difficulties are, I might say, always preparatory to some step in advance; and if the eye be kept on Him, you will be ready for the onward step; whereas, if the eye be only on the trials, though there will be a sense of mercy in the way He makes a way of escape out of them, there will not be, as with Abraham, the “Jehovah-jireh ... In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (Genesis 22: 14) - and a great blessing flowing from the trials. I mean the escape from the trial is the measure of the faith in the one case; whereas, in the other, something never expected, or within the range of probability, is sure to be vouchsafed - as to Paul and Silas in the prison at Philippi. In the one case I limit God to my sense of suffering; I prescribe, as it were, what He is to do for me; in the other, I am leaving it all to Him, and He then astonishes me by the greatness and kindness of His heart for me. Instead of being engrossed with what afflicts me, I seek to find my resources and rest more in Him; and as I do, the trials are distanced in the sense of His power and favour.
[p. 284] Thus our blessed Lord walked through this world. May He be your stay, and your delight too, and then all these trials will work for you increased blessing and comfort.