SORROW AND TRIAL (1)

SORROW AND TRIAL (1)

“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12: 6). Thus He shows His interest in us. His purpose is that we should be “partakers of his holiness”, a word used only once in Scripture. You have both passed through deep sorrow. The Lord not only measured the sorrow, but He is near you now to make Himself your solace. Thus the affliction is a gain in a twofold way; that is, on one hand you are detached by it from some “weight”, and on the other, you are more separated unto God. When you are in Christ’s path, He sympathises with you in your desolation, and you learn Him in a fuller way than ever before. The word (as we see in Hebrews 4) leads you into clear light exposing all the mixed motives, and when you are in the right way, you find how He feels with you, and by His company not only consoles you, but effects for you the greatest blessing, even that of knowing Him better, and being more simply attached to Him. The deepest attachment is formed in sorrow; that is, in your sorrow you find out the real value that any one is to you. No doubt Mary (John 11) learned more of the heart of Christ as He walked beside her to the tomb of Lazarus than she had ever known before.

May you both, though sowing in tears, reap in joy. To remain here after death has removed a beloved one gives one a right sense of the nature of the scene. The Lord has died here, and as we are true to Him, we follow Him to the place where He is.