| Strength and Beauty |
Chapter 17 |
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It is important that we understand well this law of life. There are those who always regard hindrances as evils, as real antagonisms. Some persons even begin to doubt God’s love when they find themselves face to face with hard conditions, when they are called to meet losses or sore trials. They are discouraged at finding it so hard to be faithful to God and loyal to duty. Really, however, hard things are tokens of God’s favor. If our best friend is he who tries to make something of us, not he who would make things easy for us, surely God’s friendship is shown in the experiences in which the man or woman in us shall be developed and trained. When God makes it necessary for us to struggle, to bear burdens, to fight battles, to put all our powers to the test, he is giving us a chance to grow.
It is worth our while; therefore, to consider the meaning of obstacles and antagonisms, as they come into our experience. They are not the work of adversary. Certainly they are not angels of God standing in the way to turn us back, like the angel that confronted Balaam in the narrow path. We are not to regard them as meeting us to cut off our progress, to hinder our advance. At least many of the opposing things which we encounter are meant to be overcome – that is why they come to meet us. They hold in themselves secrets of blessing, of good, of strength, of experience, which we are to take from them in our own victory over them. The best things of life are to be won on fields of struggle. In the letters to the seven churches in the book of Revelation the glorious honors which are offered are all prizes for victors. In every case it is “to him that overcometh” that the blessings are promised. They lie beyond battlefields, and we must fight to get them. Robert Browning asks:
“Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestalled in triumph?”
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