WINTER TIME - THE TEST OF GROWTH
WINTER TIME - THE TEST OF GROWTH
In our journey here we pass through every season: the spring and the summer, but also the autumn and the winter. The winter tests the growth of summer. The tree that endures the winter best, is the one that [p. 96] will bud best in spring. In the winter, the sap - the power of life, is concentrated; everything without checks the expression of it, and there is hindrance on every side because of the inclemency; and this effects, as there is vigour in the plant, consolidation which forms stamina for future exertion and growth. Thus in trial and sorrow, there is everything checking and blighting outside and around, but this is the time that one more fully reaches and ascertains the real power within - what the resources really are, independently of all outward and perishable things; and as this power is assured and possessed, so will there be increased ability to bud and blossom and bring forth fruit when the trials are over and gone.
The Lord sees it necessary at times to subject His people to temporary eclipses of the natural sun, that is, the blessings which suit us naturally, in order that they should ascertain the measure and value of what He is in Himself; because it is as we know the latter that we enter into and know the joys of heaven. Here our God does for us and Christ does in us, for we are in Him; but there we shall not need anything to be done for us or in us, but what He is Himself will occupy and satisfy our hearts. The winter here is a temporary death, all encouragement to life is suspended, there is nothing to induce one to look around, or to bind one to this scene; and then it is one discovers the real amount of one’s resources in Christ, and the actual extent of one’s satisfaction in a purely human condition. During the eclipse there is nothing but Christ; and if He be known in His preciousness, the eclipse, the winter, becomes a time when the most blessed acquirements are made. How differently one would address one’s self to the journey if one had experienced truly the loss of every green thing here, but at the same time were compensated for it all in the company of Christ. It would be as if one had died and had reached heaven and entered into its joys with the Lord, and had returned [p. 97] here again for another spring and summer and autumn. How wondrously would such an one bud and blossom and bring forth fruit! May you know much of this blessed acquirement in these dark and wintry days; and may the Lord be able to say of you, I have come into my garden and have eaten of my pleasant fruits.