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經文：「我在暗中告訴你們的，你們要在明處說出來。」（太10:27） 神常常領我們到黑暗之中，為著要和我們說話。有時是孤單的黑暗，有時是憂傷的黑暗，有時是失望的黑暗，有時是疾病的黑暗。然後祂告訴我們祂偉大、神奇、永遠、無限的奧秘；祂開啟我們迷濛的眼睛，叫我們看見屬天的榮耀；祂開通我們聾聵的耳朵，叫我們聽見祂的聲音。使我們在黑暗中學到那，過去從來沒有學到的功課。 可是當我們得到啟示以後，就有一個責任「你們要在明處說出來...要在屋頂上宣揚出來」。因為我們不會一直沉默在黑暗中，不久就會出來。那時我們就要把所學到的說出口，宣揚開來。 這樣看來，我們受苦並非是毫無意義與目的的；許多次當我們正在受苦的時候會悲嘆說：「我還有甚麼用處，我對於人們還有甚麼益處？我寶貴的一生就這樣浪費了麼？」請讓我告訴你：神是有目的的；神要我們與祂有最高品質的交流，要我們能面對面聽祂說話，將信息帶給山腳下的人們。摩西在西乃山、以利亞在何烈山、保羅在亞拉伯，豈都是白費時日呢？ 基督徒必須要有單獨默想與神交流的時間；我們的身體怎樣需要食物，我們的靈照樣也需要山上的交流與巖下的安息。這樣，我們才會時時感到神的同在，然後就能像大衛那樣說：「耶和華阿，祢與我相近。」（詩119:51）--F.B.Meyer 新譯｜荒漠甘泉讀書會
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Scripture: "What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light" (Matt. 10:27). Our Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment. Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the car to detect the undertones of His voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth's strident cries. But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility--'that speak ye in the light--that proclaim upon the housetops." We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet; presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and storm of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what we have learned. This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is often its apparent aimlessness. "How useless I am!" "What am I doing for the betterment of men?" "Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard of my soul?" Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the message to his fellows at the mountain foot. Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period spent at Horeb by Elijah, or the years spent in Arabia by Paul? There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silenced the stir of human life, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food. Thus alone can the sense of God's presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, "Thou art near, 0 God." --F. B. Meyer ｜ Mrs. Charles Cowman
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