We know in reality only what we know by experience. Those who would be instruments in God’s hands to help others must often have a preparatory training-course in the school of suffering; how else could they know how to help others? Brother, sister, has God called you to do a work for him? If so you need not marvel if he lets the rod of pain be laid upon you. If you have hindrances which seem to shut up the way before you, if you have trials that you can not understand, if you have disappointments and perplexities, if you have spiritual conflicts that threaten to overwhelm you, do not think it strange. How can you teach others how to bear such things if you have not borne them? How can you know the way out for others if you have never gone that way? How can you teach others to look for the blessings in these things if you have not their fruitage in your own life? Those who have suffered most can enter most into the sufferings of others. The successful worker will find that the strength and wisdom that bring him success was the gift of pain, and had not pain brought him strength and knowledge, success could not now be his. Likewise sometimes we must suffer for others if we would save them. So if you would be a worker for God and know how to enter truly into the sorrows and needs of others, you must yourself drink the bitter cup and feel the chastening rod. After the Lord called me to his work, I endured some great soul-conflicts. In them I suffered inexpressibly. I almost despaired at times, but I look back upon those things now as being the things that made me understand the human heart, that gave me a broader sympathy, and that have since enabled me to enter into the sorrows and needs of others and to minister comfort and help as I could not otherwise have done. Those early sufferings unlocked a thousand mysteries and enriched not only my own life but also the lives of others. Endure these things with patience; for out of them will come to you that which is more precious than gold. If you do not suffer, you can be of little use to those who do suffer. The promise is, “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.”