CHILDREN IN SUFFERING

A very tender scripture relates about a suffering boy named Ishmael that God heard his voice "there, where he is". In fact his name is said to mean 'God hears'. This should encourage young people to carry every trouble to our heavenly Father in prayer, although He already knows and sees everything. By the habit of prayer they would grow up to be reliant upon Him, rather than be self-reliant and unruly, as Ishmael unhappily became when he was a man.

In God's ways some boys and girls learn, when quite young, what suffering and sorrow really mean. At such times comfort is always to be found where love is, and especially for the believer, in the Lord Jesus. When here He felt in His spirit all the diseases, illnesses and troubles that He cured with His power. He knew indeed what it was to be "very sorrowful even unto death". The shortest verse in the Bible tells us quite simply that, at the tomb of Lazarus, "Jesus wept", although His divine power was about to change the circumstances completely. In other connections the three great apostles also wept. In Peter's case the tears were those of sorrow for failure to confess his Master; with Paul it was because of the enemies of the cross of Christ; John wept much until he understood that the Lord, seen by him as "the Lamb", is able to solve every problem to the glory of God.

Sometimes sorrow becomes changed into joy. I expect that the maiden, Rhoda, was as anxious as the older brethren at the meeting for prayer when Peter was in prison. But when she actually heard his voice at the door of the house she forgot to open it to him at once for sheer joyful surprise! In the gracious ways of God a boy who had become a cripple at the young age of five years was given, in later years a happy place at the table of his king. He remained faithful to David when many others were unfaithful to him. Do you long to be faithful to the Lord Jesus in the time now of His rejection and absence?

J.C.Evershed