BE NOT AFRAID | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 4, 1881

BE NOT AFRAID.

CHRISTIANS who are constitutionally timid are apt to suffer keenly from fear of trials and afflictions. As sensitive plants shrink when touched by the human hand, so they shrink from anticipated suffering. This shrinking is natural, but it cannot be pleasing to our heavenly Father, because it implies a lack of faith in his loving care, and disobedience to his commands. Has he not said to his children, "Fear not, for I am with thee"? Did not Jesus say to his disciples in their extremest hour of trial, "Let not your hearts be troubled"? Moreover, the very trials which such souls dread may never come, or, if they do arise, may be the only discipline by which they can gain that purification of the affections which is essential to the highest development of their characters. Hence the fearful disciple needs to heed this maxim of the saintly Molinos: "Be not afraid of those trials which God may see fit to send upon thee. It is with the wind and storm of tribulation that God, in the garner of the soul, separates the true wheat from the chaff. Always remember, therefore, that God comes to thee in thy sorrows as really as in thy joys."

—Zion's Herald.