Psalm 126
Psalm 126:5:
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. |
It is a law of the spiritual life that through tribulation we enter into the joy of the Kingdom. God means us to reap in joy, but first we must sow in tears. See, for example, how this law meets us at the very threshold of the Christian life. Great though the blessedness in which Christ invites us, the beginnings of His life in the soul come to us amid tears. Then for the first time we see the mystery of the cross; and what strikes us, in what we see, is the spectacle of a Saviour there is for us. We see the wounds in His body, but, behind these, wounds for ourselves, for the healing of which he died. No one ever truly opens his eyes on those facts who does not weep. Sharp and into the very heart goes the pangs; “it is I who have crucified the Lord!”
The seed is God’s, and God’s too is the increase; only let us cast God’s seed into God’s soil, it matters not though we sow in tears, He will bless us with the harvest. God has His Purpose in every call of duty; His purposes is to give us the blessedness of what we do. Were the work ours alone, were we left to do it by ourselves, were success dependent on our efforts or skill, then as we think how imperfect we are, and we contemplate the powerful influences to hinder and mar the cause which we have at heart, we might well despair. But the word of the Lord, standeth sure; God’s promise cannot fail of fulfillment. Every promise of God has this tacitly annexed to it–”is anything too hard for the Lord?” |