Hardship

The Old Cross – AW Tozer

The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-bye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.

– AW Tozer –

The Reality of the Cross – Alexander Smellie

The cross which my Lord bids me take up and carry may assume different shapes. I may have to content myself with a lowly and narrow sphere, when I feel that I have capacities for much higher work. I may have to go on cultivating year after year, a field which seems to yield me no harvests whatsoever. I may be bidden to cherish kind and loving thoughts about someone who has wronged me—be bidden speak to him tenderly, and take his part against all who oppose him, and crown him with sympathy and succor. I may have to confess my Master amongst those who do not wish to be reminded of Him and His claims. I may be called to “move among my race, and show a glorious morning face,” when my heart is breaking.

There are many crosses, and every one of them is sore and heavy. None of them is likely to be sought out by me of my own accord. But never is Jesus so near me as when I lift my cross, and lay it submissively on my shoulder, and give it the welcome of a patient and unmurmuring spirit.

He draws close, to ripen my wisdom, to deepen my peace, to increase my courage, to augment my power to be of use to others, through the very experience which is so grievous and distressing, and then—as I read on the seal of one of those Scottish Covenanters whom Claverhouse imprisoned on the lonely Bass, with the sea surging and sobbing round—I grow under the load.

– Alexander Smellie –

Pressed Into Living a Christ-life Outpoured – Lettie Cowman

Pressed out of measure and pressed to all length;
Pressed so intensely it seems, beyond strength;
Pressed in the body and pressed in the soul,
Pressed in the mind till the dark surges roll.
Pressure by foes, and a pressure from friends.
Pressure on pressure, till life nearly ends.
Pressed into knowing no helper but God;
Pressed into loving the staff and the rod.
Pressed into liberty where nothing clings;
Pressed into faith for impossible things.
Pressed into living a life in the Lord,
Pressed into living a Christ-life outpoured.

– Lettie Cowman –

Not Asked to Preach – John Wesley

From the journals of John Wesley:

  • Sunday a.m., May 5 – Preached in St. Ann’s; was asked not to come back any more.
  • Sunday p.m., May 5 – Preached at St. John’s; deacons said, ‘Get out and stay out.’
  • Sunday a.m., May 12 – Preached at St. Jude’s; can’t go back there either.
  • Sunday p.m., May 12 – Preached at St. George’s; kicked out again.
  • Sunday a.m., May 19 – Preached at St. Somebody Else’s; deacons called a special meeting and said I couldn’t return.
  • Sunday p.m., May 19 – Preached on the street; kicked off the street.
  • Sunday a.m., May 26 – Preached out in a meadow; chased out of meadow when a bull was turned loose during the service.
  • Sunday a.m., June 2 – Preached out at the edge of town; kicked off the highway.
  • Sunday p.m., June 2 – Afternoon service, preached in pasture; 10,000 people came.

– John Wesley –

The Joy of Trials and Struggles – John Flavel

Have we not with joy observed how those very things that sense and reason tell us are opposite to our happiness have been the most blessed instruments to promote it! How has God blessed crosses to mortify corruption, wants to kill our wantonness, disappointments to wean us from the world! O we little think how comfortable those things will be in the review, which are so burdensome to present sense!

– John Flavel –
from The Mystery of Providence, 1678

Suffering a Little – Thomas Watson

“After ye have suffered a while” (1 Peter 5:10), or as it is in the Greek, “a little.” Our sufferings may be lasting, not everlasting.

– Thomas Watson –
1620-1686