| The Ministry of Comfort |
Chapter 5 |
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Pain is wonderful revealer. It teaches us many things we never could have known if we had not been called to endure it. It opens windows through which we see, as we never saw before, the beautiful things of God’s love. But the revealing is not to be hidden in our own heart. If we try thus to keep them we shall miss their blessing; only by declaring them to others can we make them truly our own and get their treasure for ourselves. Only what we give away can we really hold for ever.
No doubt God’s children are ofttimes called to suffer in order that they may honour the divine name in some way. This is illustrated in the case of Job. Satan sneeringly asks, “Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face.”
It was necessary that this challenge of Satan’s should be met and disproved, and hence the great trials through which Job was called to pass. His sufferings were not for the cleansing of his own nature, or the correction of faults in his character, but in order that he might show by his unshaken faith that his serving of God was not for earthly reward, but from true loyalty of soul.
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