UNWILLING DISCIPLINE For he does
not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. Lamentations
3 verse 33 In our seasons of trial, when
under some inscrutable dispensation, how apt is the murmuring thought
to rise in our hearts, All these things are against me! Might
not this overwhelming blow have been spared? Might not this dark
cloud, which has shadowed my heart and my home with sadness,
have been averted? Might not the accompaniments
of my trial have been less severe? Surely the Lord has forgotten
to be gracious. No, these afflictions are errands
of mercy in disguise. He afflicts not willingly. There
is nothing capricious or arbitrary about your God's dealings. Unutterable
tenderness is the character of all His allotments. The world
may wound by unkindness. Trusted friends may become disloyal. A brother may speak with unnecessary
harshness and severity. But the Lord is abundant in goodness
and in truth. He appoints no needless paying.
When He appears, like Joseph, to speak roughly, there are gentle
undertones of love. The stern accents are assumed
because He has precious lessons that could not otherwise have
been taught. ah, be assured there is some
deep necessity in all he does. In our calendars of sorrow we
may put this luminous mark against every trying hour. It was needed. Some unfruitful branch in the
tree required pruning, some wheat required to be cast overboard
to lighten the ship and avert further disaster. Mourning one,
he might have dealt far otherwise with you. He might have cut you
down as a fruitless, worthless cumberer. He might have abandoned
you to drift, disowned and unpiloted on the rocks of destruction.
Joined to your idols, he might have left you alone to settle
on your lees and forfeit your eternal bliss. But he loved you
better. It was kindness which blighted
your fairest blossoms and hedged up your way with thorns. Without
this hedge of thorns, says Baxter, on the right hand and on the
left we would hardly be able to keep on the way to Heaven.
We, in our blind unbelief, may speak of trials we imagine might
have been spared, chastisements that are unnecessarily severe. But the day is coming when every
step of the Lord's procedure will be vindicated. when we shall
own and recognize each separate experience of sorrow, to have
been an unspeakably precious and important period in the history
of the soul. Yes, child of God, the messenger
of affliction has an olive branch in one hand, a love-token plucked
from the bowers of Paradise, and, in the other, a chalice
mingled by one too loving and gracious to insert one needless
ingredient of sorrow. Remember, every drop of wrath
in that cup was exhausted by a surety Saviour. In taking it
into your hand, be it yours to extract support and consolation
from what so mightily sustained a greater sufferer in a more
awful hour. This cup which you give me to
drink, shall I not drink it?