All These Things are Against Me.
By Uriah Smith
Such was the pathetic exclamation of Jacob, when his sons returned from Egypt where they had been to purchase food, to relieve them from the pressure of a terrible famine, and where they had left Simeon as a pledge that they would bring down their younger brother, Benjamin, with them when they came again. 'Me,' said he, 'have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not.' He supposed Joseph to be dead. 'Simeon is not.' He counted Simeon, retained in custody in Egypt, the same as dead. 'And ye will take Benjamin away.' To all outward appearance his circumstances were indeed dark, and afflictions were accumulating upon him? But was it in reality so? Were these things against him? No: they were all for him. Joseph himself afterward declared that it was God who had ordered these events to preserve to the children of Israel a posterity in the earth, and to save life by a great deliverance. What to desponding Jacob appeared to be proofs of God's displeasure, or evidences of his vindictive judgments, were in reality so many links in the chain of his mercy, by which he was working for his good, and to save him and his posterity alive in the earth. As it was, over three thousand years ago, so it may be to-day. As it was with Jacob, so it may be with us. God may be working for our good, in what may seem to us but afflictions and misfortunes. From any standpoint which we are able to take, his ways may be inscrutable. But shall we, while passing through the furnace to that state of purity to which he designs to elevate us, or traveling in the way of his own choosing, to the goal to which he designs to bring us—shall we in any of the way sink down in discouragement and exclaim, All these things are against us? They are not against us. Have we not the promise that all things shall work together for our good, if we love God? Wait; and we shall one day be permitted, even as was Jacob, to scan the whole ground, and behold the beautiful pattern which God was working out in the lights and shades of life. We shall see that what we esteemed our greatest afflictions were our greatest blessings, essential to our deliverance and salvation. The lesson he would meanwhile have us learn and practice is, a firm trust in him in deepest afflictions, hope in discouragement, and patience in the hour of trial.