The Spiritual Gold Of A Godly Life
We sent Timothy … so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them.
1 Thessalonians 3:2-3
Mining for gold requires a willingness to work long hours in uncomfortable surroundings. But once a strike is made, the toil and tears seem a small price to pay.
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The spiritual gold of a godly life is no different. Holiness and hardship are inseparable parts of the same endeavor. F. B. Meyer examines the purpose behind God-appointed trials in the Christian life.
WALK WITH F. B. MEYER
“We all love the sunshine, but the Arabs have a proverb that ‘all sunshine makes the desert.’
“And we commonly observe how the graces of Christian living are more often apparent in the case of those individuals who have passed through great tribulation.
“God desires to get as rich a crop as possible from the soil of our natures. There are certain plants of the Christian life, such as meekness, gentleness, kindness, humility, which cannot come to perfection if the sun of prosperity always shines.
“As the weights of the clock or the ballast in the vessel are necessary for their right ordering, so is trouble in the soul-life. The sweetest scents are only obtained by tremendous pressure; the fairest flowers grow amid Alpine snow-solitudes; the rarest gems have suffered longest from the cutter’s wheel; the noblest statues have borne the most blows of the chisel.
“All, however, is under God’s supervision. Nothing happens that has not been appointed with consummate care and foresight.”
WALK CLOSER TO GOD
Just as the sculptor’s chisel reveals the hidden beauty in a chunk of marble, so difficulties pare away the rough edges in your life. Even as the gardener’s shears prune bushes for greater beauty and productivity, so the difficulties in your life prepare you for fruit-bearing in God’s kingdom.
And when they do, you have the “consummate care and foresight” of God to thank.
