. Your severest sufferings, by
John Macduff. Yet I want your will to be done,
not mine. Luke 22.42. Where was there ever resignation
like this? The life of Jesus was one long
martyrdom. From Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's
cross, there was scarcely one break in the clouds. These gathered
more darkly and ominously around him until they burst over his
devoted head as he uttered his expiring cry. Yet, throughout
this pilgrimage of sorrow, no murmuring accent escaped his
lips. The most suffering of all suffering
lives was one of uncomplaining submission. Yet, I want your
will to be done, not mine, was the motto of this wondrous being.
When he came into the world, he thus announced his advent,
Lo, I come, I delight to do your will, O my God. When he left
it, we listened to the same prayer of blended agony and acquiescence,
O my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet
I want your will to be done, not mine. Ah, reader, what are
your trials compared to his? What are the ripples in your
tide of woe compared to the waves and billows which swept over
him? If he, the spotless Lamb of God,
murmured not, How can you murmur? His were the sufferings of a
bosom never once darkened with the passing shadow of guilt or
sin. Your severest sufferings are
deserved, yes, infinitely less than you deserve. Are you tempted
to indulge in hard suspicions as to God's faithfulness and
love in appointing some peculiar trial? Ask yourself, would Jesus
have complained? Should I seek to pry into the
deep things of God when He, in the spirit of a weaned child,
was satisfied with a solution? Even so, Father, for so it seems
good in your sight. Even so, Father, afflicted one,
tossed with tempest and not comforted, take that word on which your
adorable Redeemer pillowed His suffering head, Father, and make
it, as He did, the secret of your resignation. My Father,
my covenant God, the God who spared not Jesus, it may well
hush my every ripening word. The sick child will take the
bitterest medicine from a father's hand. This cup which you, O God,
give me to drink, shall I not drink it? Be it mine to lie passive
in the arms of your chastening love, exulting in the assurance
that all your appointments, though sovereign, are never arbitrary,
but that there is a gracious need be in them all. drinking
deep of his sweet spirit of submission, you will be able thus to meet,
yes, even to welcome your sorest cross, saying, Yes, Lord, all
is well, just because it is your blessed will. Take me, use me,
chasten me, as seems good in your sight. My will is resolved
into yours, This trial is dark, I cannot see the why and the
wherefore of it, yet I want your will to be done, not mine. My gourd is withered, I cannot
see the reason of so speedy a dissolution of my beloved earthly shelter.
My sense and sight ask me in vain why these leaves of earthly
refreshment have been doomed so soon to droop in sadness and
sorrow. But it is enough. The Lord prepared
the worm. I want your will to be done,
not mine. Oh, how does the stricken soul
honour God by thus being silent in the midst of dark and perplexing
dealings, recognising in these part of the needed discipline
and training for a sorrowless, sinless, deathless world regarding
every trial as a link in the chain, which draws it to heaven,
where the whitest robes will be found to be those here baptized
with suffering and bathed in tears.