『催逼前進-Pressing Forward』

經文: 「我們…遭遇苦難，被壓太重…甚至連活命的指望都絕了。自己心裡也斷定是必死的，叫我們不靠自己，只靠叫死人復活的上帝。」— [聖經·哥林多後書 1章8-9節]

遭遇苦難，常使我們重視生命。每一次死裡逃生之後，我們覺得這眞是一個新的開始，該怎樣多多服事上帝、服事人。遭遇苦難，也使我們能諒解，同情別人的苦難。

人們總常喜歡批評別人沒有信心，逃避試煉；但是曾經苦難的人絕不如此，他知道、懂得別人所遭遇的苦是甚麼。

苦難是催逼我們前進的必需品，正如船中的爐火是使船駛行的必需品一般。— 宣信(A. B. Simpson)

—《荒漠甘泉》5月18日

『 Pressing Forward 』

Scripture: “I was crushed…so much so that I despaired even of life, but that was to make me rely not on myself, but on the God who raises the dead.” — [2 Cor. 1:8, 9]

The pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it for God and man. The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to help and sympathize with them.

There is a shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who shrink from every trial; but the man or woman who has suffered much never does this, but is very tender and gentle, and knows what suffering really means.

Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give force that moves the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great vessel across the sea in the face of the winds and waves. — A. B. Simpson

—《Streams in the Desert》
「 18 May 」