Suppose away in South Africa there is a woman whose husband has gone on a
long journey into the interior. He is to be away for months from all posts.
The wife is anxious to receive news. In weeks she has had no letter or
tidings from him. One day, as she stands in her door, there comes a great,
savage Kafir. He is frightful in appearance, and carries his spears and
shield. The woman is alarmed and rushes into the house and closes the
door. He comes and knocks at the door, and she is in terror. She sends her
servant, who comes back and says, "The man says he must see you." She
goes, all affrighted. He takes out an old newspaper. He has come a month's
journey on foot from her husband, and inside the dirty newspaper is a
letter from her husband, telling her of his welfare. How that wife delights
in that letter! She forgets the face that has terrified her. And now as
weeks are passing away again, how she begins to long for that ugly Kafir
messenger! After long waiting he comes again, and this time she rushes
out to meet him because he is the messenger that comes from her beloved
husband, and she knows that with all his repelling exterior, he is
the bearer of a message of love. Beloved, have you learned to look at
tribulation, and vexation, and disappointment, as the dark, savage-looking
messenger with a spear in his hand, that comes straight from Jesus? Have
you learned to say, "There is never a trouble, and never a hurt by which
my heart is touched or even pierced, but it comes from Jesus, and brings
a message of love?" Will you not learn to say from to-day, "Welcome every
trial, for it comes from God?" If you want God to be all in all, you must
see and meet God in every providence. Oh, learn to accept God's will in
everything! Come learn to say of every trial, without exception, "It is my
Father who sent it. I accept it as His messenger," and nothing in earth or
hell can separate you from God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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