“Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17).
Though thy way be long and dreary,
Eagle strength He’ll still renew;
Garments fresh and foot unweary
Tell how God has brought thee through.
J.N. Darby
Ah! It is blessed to be at the feet of Jesus in our sorrows, for there divine light shines upon them, and though we may suffer and even be oppressed with our trials, we shall not, while there, doubt His love.
“Jesus wept.” All know that the verses of our Bible are merely a human arrangement, and yet who can doubt that the Spirit of God controlled the one who made it in putting these two words into one verse? They indeed should stand alone, inasmuch as they afford such an inlet into the recesses of the Lord’s heart. They have been the comfort of mourners in all ages, and they will continue to minister consolation to His people until God Himself shall wipe away all tears from their faces.
“Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Untold sorrows characterize the human race, and this invitation is not confined to those who are laden with sin. Jesus addresses anyone who is bowed with any possible sorrow, any possible bereavement. Whatever the burden upon you, the Lord speaks to you.
Your whole responsibility at the present moment is to “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” And what a blessing it is that you may and can rest, whatever your suffering, on the Lord’s breast.
It is indeed an immense thing to be in communion with His mind in His object in our sufferings.
God chooses my circumstances, my sicknesses and my sorrows in view of what He is accomplishing. “We do know that all things work together for good to those who love God. . . . Because whom He has foreknown, He has also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:2829 JND). He thus chooses the circumstances for us that will best accomplish His purpose of conforming us to the image of His Son. The consequence is that if I am in the line of His purpose, I will never seek to change my circumstances. In fellowship with the heart of God I will gratefully leave that to Him.
How merciful it is in the ways of God that it is only gradually we approach our sorrows and that we find when they come upon us that they are “lustered with His love”!
He alone who has made the blank in your life can fill it, and He will. When all the blanks of earth are filled with His presence we gain infinitely more than we have lost.
When the Lord returns, we shall lose all bodily weakness, so that it will take a little time, as it often seems to me, before we find ourselves at home in our new circumstances. How we shall rejoice when “in soul and body perfect.” For this deliverance we have still to wait, but the blessed hope of it cheers us in the midst of our pilgrimage.
E. Dennett
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