HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.” (Job 42:12).
Through his griefs, Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed. Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of before? I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the roughest wall. Job’s afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of himself. “Now,” he cried, “mine eye seeth thee.
And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him and pray, “Thy will be done,” I gain very much. God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In those wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.
“Trouble never comes to a man unless he brings a nugget of gold in his hand.” Oh, how I feel the trouble in my spirit day after day from that day in 2012 when I set out on a spiritual journey to work with others for the betterment of our lives. Sometimes I thought like Job that I was not born. But to work in the field and to tend to the plants and fruits was my goal and acknowledgement that God was in charge of my life. I am still realizing the difficult times and today the future looks brighter. For yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for Thou are with me and Thy rod and staff shall comfort me.
Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing to keep on working and to wait patiently. How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at their work, dauntless and unafraid! There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when earth’s lights have gone out. There are harvests which can grow only after the ploughshare has done its work. Where are you standing in all this as a believer in Christ? Are you standing a member of the church and Christ is nowhere to be found? Are you in some organization that does not believe in Jesus Christ? Where is your standing in all of these trials?
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven. Let me be numbered among them alongside of Joshua, Job, Paul and the other Elders. Here I am Lord Jesus and take me as I am.
