As some of you know (I just learned it this week in that Oswald Chambers chapter), the last line of the "waiting" passage I posted yesterday is a reference the Lord Jesus' own statement about awaiting His baptism of death (Luke 12:50, KJV). God is patient, yes, but this wait was causing the Lord pain! Not because He was dreading it, but because it would mark the end of His "straitened" state -- and of ours, explains Witness Lee. I can't get my head around this yet, but that's the Holy Spirit's work. My task is just to share this passage:
Another excerpt from Oswald Chambers, Christian Disciplines vol. 2, book 3, "The Discipline of Patience":
A friend of mine wrote to tell me about several extremely painful trials she and her family are facing. I asked the Lord for an encouraging word to share with her, and this is what I found. Here it is for you, in case you are navigating great waters as well. I offer it above all to my Lord, to declare His perfect faithfulness even in times when His hand is hidden from view. "He whose life is one even and smooth path, will see but little of the glory of the Lord, for he has few occasions of self-emptying, and hence, but little fitness for being filled with the revelation of God. They who navigate little streams and shallow creeks, know but little of the God of tempests; but they who "do business in great waters," these see His "wonders in the deep." Among the huge Atlantic-waves of bereavement, poverty, temptation, and reproach, we learn the power of Jehovah, because we feel the littleness of man. Thank God, then, if you have been led by a rough road: it is this which has given you your experience of God's greatness and lovingkindness. Your troubles have enriched you with a wealth of knowledge to be gained by no other means: your trials have been the cleft of the rock in which Jehovah has set you, as He did His servant Moses, that you might behold His glory as it passed by. Praise God that you have not been left to the darkness and ignorance which continued prosperity might have involved, but that in the great fight of affliction, you have been capacitated for the outshinings of His glory in His wonderful dealings with you."
Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening July 19 morning reading |
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Note: prior to March 2017, quoted passages are listed in "Praise reflections" with the subtitle "a quotation." |