All wish frequently, no doubt, that the testings were all over and that we were accepted to a place among the overcomers; but patience and faith and trust are to do a refining work in our hearts, making us mellow, willing and obedient to the Lord. Let the good work go on. Let us rejoice if our trials have brought us lessons of any kind that are profitable to us—that have tended to make us stronger in character, more firm for truth and righteousness, more aware of our own weaknesses, and more on guard against the same. Even those conflicts which have resulted in only partial victories have possibly been to our advantage. Even on points in which there may have been absolute failure, the result may be a strengthening of character, a crystallization of determination for greater zeal in that direction again, and a humility of heart before the Lord in prayer.
The temptations here meant are the Christian's trials along the lines of losses, disappointments, delays, restraints, shelvings, faults, lacks, weaknesses, mistakes, failures, chastisements, hardships, necessities, calamities, misunderstandings, disagreements, divisions, misrepresentations, oppositions, sickness, pains, sorrows, dangers and persecutions. The natural tendency of such trials is to distress us, but we should rejoice in them as evidence of God's favor and as opportunities for our development. Amid such trials at first it is impossible to rejoice; the best we can do is to count them joy, i.e., reckoned, not actual joy. By and by such reckoning will become a habit, and this habit will gradually produce such joy as will enable us to exult and glory, if not at, yet amid our tribulations. Hallelujah!
REPRINTS
Ex. 34:12; Deut. 13:3; Psa. 119:165; Prov. 2:10-12; 14:27; 19:27; Isa. 33:15, 16; Matt. 4:1-11; 13:22; Rom. 5:3-5; 8:35-39; 12:21; 1 Cor. 10:13, 14; 2 Cor. 7:4; Eph. 6:11-17; Heb. 2:18; 4:15.
