GRACE的珍貴角落

荒漠甘泉∕8 月 22日

原作∕Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
 

『其餘的人，可以用板子，或船上的零碎東西上岸。這樣，眾人都得了救上了岸。』（徒二十七章四十四節）

保羅上羅馬去的那奇異的經歷－所受的試煉和所得的榮耀－真是信徒走信心道路的一好模範，其中最寶貴的教訓乃是：在我們所到的一切困難狹窄的地方，都有特殊的辦法和預備的。

按照人們普通的眼光看來，信心的道路，一定是滿撒著鮮花的；甚麼時候神要拯救祂的子民脫離危險，神就會立刻將他們從困難中提出來。事實卻正相反。聖經上的故事告訴我們：每一個見證人－從亞伯起，一直到最近殉道者－都是先受試煉，後得榮耀的。

保羅的經歷告訴我們：一個神的孩子，無論受多少苦，仍能不在靈裡受壓。保羅因為在大馬色宣傳耶穌的緣故，猶太人商議要殺他，我們看見那時候天上並沒有在火焰雷電中降下戰車戰馬來把這位大使徒從仇敵的勢力範圍中護送出去，他是『用筐子把他從城牆上縋下去』的（九章二十五節）。你看，被裝在一只舊的衣筐裡面！像一包送出去洗濯的衣服一般！耶穌基督的僕人竟這樣邋遢地從窗戶口縋下去！

後來我們又看見他被下在監裡；我們看見他怎樣被親友遺棄，怎樣受殘酷可恥的鞭打；就是在神允准拯救他以後，我們還看見他被留在波濤洶湧的海中顛簸；最後，拯救來了，可是天上並沒有大船飛下來把這位尊貴的囚犯接出去；也沒有天使在水面上平靜猖獗的怒濤；船上的人，必須有的抓住桅桿，有的抓住木板，有的攀住破船的碎片，有的跳下水去游泳，纔能得救上岸。這就是神對待我們的方法。

很多時候，神的允准並不是立刻將我們從試煉中提出來的，因為神知道經過試煉以後，我們的信心會變成精金。－譯自信心道路上的艱難（Harrd Places inthe Way Faith）

"And the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land." (Acts 27:44.)

THE marvelous story of Paul's voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God's most extraordinary interpositions and providences.

It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewm with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.

Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life, but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but "through a window in a basket," was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.

Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.

Here is God's pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.

God's promises and God's providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our every day experience. --- Hard Places in the Way of Faith.