All these Things are Against Me.
By A. P. Lawton
Thus spake Jacob, and thus many have felt and spoken since, who if their eyes were not holden would have seen, as he afterward saw, that God's ways are not our ways, and that he was doing the best thing for us. Who among us have not felt that our trials were peculiar? Whose sorrows are like my sorrows? We seem to forget that it is through much tribulation that we are to enter into the kingdom; and, like the children of Israel, we are finding fault with the way. How long will God's people refuse cheerfully to be led in his own appointed way? Why so slow to submit? Well may we apply the language of the prophet to ourselves: "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." It is time we were one thing or the other, that the church may know her strength. We must be awake to the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the great contrast between the kingdom of darkness and that of light; and the fearful consequences of a spirit of rebellion, if things do not move in our own channel. This half-hearted, fault-finding, forcing of things to our terms, is displeasing to God; and Jesus and good angels turn from us. If we, like good children, learn to take things as they are, patiently submit and endure those which we cannot control, when God sees that we are taught the lessons he designed, he will either remove them, or make them tolerable. We cannot force God to our terms. He remains a perpetual fountain of goodness and purity; and when we, through cheerful obedience and faith, draw near to him, we may partake of that goodness and purity. Oh, how desirable!