THE GOOD OF UNSUITED CIRCUMSTANCES
THE GOOD OF UNSUITED CIRCUMSTANCES
When we speak of everything being suited to us, we necessarily make ourselves the ones to be considered, and that according to our own judgment. It is God’s judgment - - our Father’s judgment - that we have to [p. 57] do with; and hence the very position we think least suited to us may be the one where He knows we shall best learn that knowledge of His grace of which we are still ignorant. In circumstances which are easy and suited to us naturally, there is not the same order of exercise or of dependence on God which there must be if we walk with God in circumstances naturally and disagreeably trying to us. How can I get on in the latter, unless I am freshly invigorated at every juncture? I am kept in a constant state of dependence; like a man swimming, I must move on and strike out, or in a little while I shall go down. The entire question with us ought to be, Am I in the place and circumstances approved of and designed for me by my Father? As to ability to continue therein, He will surely supply it if I am where He would have me to be. And more than this, it is there that I learn the power of His grace to me. God is not now making smooth and easy places for us. He is, on the contrary, leading us into difficult ones, and teaching us that in His strength we are to rise above them, to be masters of the occasion. Before man was brought nigh to God in His Son, He did make smooth places for His people; but now being in Christ, He shews His favour in enabling us to rise above things - to be superior to them, because we are in the strength of Christ. Be assured it is a far more signal instance of your Father’s favour towards you, as a servant on earth of His Son, to place you in circumstances unsuited to you where the grace of Christ may be known by you, making you master of them, than if He placed you in a nice little sphere where naturally you could swing round like a ship at anchor in a dock.
Would you learn the power of Christ, or would you recline only under the shade of a gourd? If you are in your right place (difficulties and disagreeables are no evidence that it is not your right place) you must conquer in it; that is, you must not only give satisfaction [p. 58] to all therein, but you must justify God in your own triumphant and thankful spirit before Him. Marah is not marah - it is sweet. Widowhood, indeed, but not widowhood which pines and mopes, but which is accepted, and which the heart accepts, as alone suited to it here while all its joys are found above.