6月12日 暴風的甘甜




經文:「你們在祂裏面凡事富足。」(林前1:5)

親愛的讀者,你有沒有見過人們在災難的迫使下曾向神作了懇切的祈禱,等到災難過後,也就漸漸地把經歷淡忘,但是心靈中仍保留著神垂聽禱告時的甘甜。

我曾經在晚春時節經歷過一次暴風雨。當時的天地間除了閃電雷鳴劃破雲層之外,簡直是完全一片漆黑。

狂風怒吼,暴雨如注,彷彿天上敞開了窗戶。這是一次多麽大的破壞!所有戶外的蜘蛛網沒有一個從暴風雨中倖存,甚至枝粗大葉的櫟樹也被連根拔起。

可是之後不久,閃電過去,雷聲靜止,大雨停歇;西風帶著清新的空氣再度吹來;烏雲被風吹散,正在遠離的暴風雨把一條彩虹做成的圍巾匆匆披在白皙的雙肩和華麗的頸項上,並回顧嫣然一笑後就退出消失了。

幾個星期以後,田野上綻放充滿芳香的花卉,夏季的青草更顯蔥綠,溪水更加充沛,樹叢投下茂密的陰影,因爲暴風雨已過去;儘管地上所有人早已忘記這次的暴風、彩虹和大雨。--西奧多·派克 Theodore Parker

神或許不會賜給我們一條順利到達應許之地的路,但是祂一定會賜給我們一條平安的路。--博納 Bonar

如果暴風雨曾讓人們發現印度的金礦,難道暴風雨不能使我們發現在耶穌基督裏有神的愛這更加豐富的寶藏?
新譯|荒漠甘泉讀書會

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Sweetness of the Storm

Scripture: "In everything ye are enriched by him" (1 Cor. 1:5).

Have you ever seen men and women whom some disaster drove to a great act of prayer, and by and by the disaster was forgotten, but the sweetness of religion remained and warmed their souls?

So have I seen a storm in later spring; and all was black, save where the lightning tore the cloud with thundering rent.

The winds blew and the rains fell, as though heaven had opened its windows. What a devastation there was! Not a spider's web that was out of doors escaped the storm, which tore up even the strong-branched oak.

But ere long the lightning had gone by, the thunder was spent and silent, the rain was over, the western wind came up with its sweet breath, the clouds were chased away, and the retreating storm threw a scarf of rainbows over her fair shoulders and resplendent neck, and looked back and smiled, and so withdrew and passed out of sight.

But for weeks long the fields held up their bands full of ambrosial flowers, and all the summer through the grass was greener, the brooks were fuller, and the trees cast a more umbrageous shade, because the storm passed by--though all the rest of the earth had long ago forgotten the storm, its rainbows and its rain. --Theodore Parker

God may not give us an easy journey to the Promised Land, but He will give us a safe one. --Bonar

It was a storm that occasioned the discovery of the gold mines of India. Hath not a storm driven some to the discovery of the richer mines of the love of God in Christ?
| Mrs. Charles Cowman