UNWILLING DISCIPLINE
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"For He does not afflict willingly — nor grieve the children of men." Lamentations 3:33
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 does not afflict willingly!" Though inscrutable to you — there is nothingcapricious 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 pang. 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, that there is some deep necessity in all that 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 divine 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 which we imagine might have been spared; or chastisements that are unnecessarily severe. But the day is coming when every step of the Lord's mysterious dealings with us 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 wrathin your cup — was exhausted by your 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?"
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