| “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). |
| When Hudson Taylor was in China, he organized what was called the China Inland Mission. Many young people joined him there, in order to bring the gospel to those who needed to hear it. Hudson Taylor liked to interview personally the young people who volunteered to spend their time in this way, in order to get to know them, and to pass on some advice. |
| Once he took a young man out to lunch at a restaurant, in order to have a visit with him. In the course of their conversation, Mr. Taylor suddenly brought his fist down hard on the table. As you may imagine, some of the water in their drinking glasses immediately spilled out onto the table. Then Hudson Taylor made his point. He said to the young man, “During your time in China, you will almost surely get many hard knocks. But when this happens, it is what is inside that will spill out, just as with our water glasses.” |
| It was a good point to be made, for in our lives, even if we do not go to a foreign land, we will likely get some hard knocks. Then what is inside will come out. An older brother used to remind us, ‘Circumstances do not produce our state of soul; they manifest (show it out) it.” He also used to say, “I will never know how closely you walk with the Lord until someone crosses you, and I see how you react.” It is easy to be pleasant and nice when everything is going smoothly, but our true state of soul (what we are really like inside) comes out when things are not going well. But walking with the Lord can give us His peace, which involves accepting our circumstances from the Lord, and taking our problems to the Lord. |
| The Lord Jesus experienced many hard knocks in His life, and He always reacted in the right way. Sometimes He was gracious, and at other times He reached the consciences of those who were responsible for those hard knocks. But Peter tells us that “when He was reviled, [He] reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). He did this as an example for us, and we can ask Him for the grace to act the same way. |
