Birthing Pains of Christlike Graces

April 8, 2014

A compilation

“Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out!”1

Look at the meaning of this prayer a moment. Its root is found in the fact that as delicious odors may lie latent in a spice tree, so graces may lie unexercised and undeveloped in a Christian's heart. There is many a plant, but from the ground there breathes forth no fragrance of holy affections or of godly deeds. The same winds blow on the thistle bush and on the spice tree, but it is only one of them which gives out rich odors.

Sometimes God sends severe blasts of trial upon His children to develop their graces. Just as torches burn most brightly when swung to and fro; just as the juniper plant smells sweetest when flung into the flames; so the richest qualities of a Christian often come out under the north wind of suffering and adversity. Bruised hearts often emit the fragrance that God loves to smell.—Mrs. Charles E. Cowman2

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No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.—Hebrews 12:113

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Pain is fraught with precious results. “Not joyous but grievous: nevertheless afterward.”4 How full of meaning is the “afterward.” Who shall estimate the hundredfold of blessing from each moment of pain? The Psalms are crystallized tears. The Epistles were in many cases written in prison. The greatest teachers of mankind have learned their most helpful lessons in sorrow's school. The noblest characters have been forged in a furnace. Acts which will live forever, masterpieces of art and music and literature, have originated in ages of storm and tempest and heart-rending agony. And so also is it with our earthly discipline. The ripest results are sorrow-born. “The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”

Holiness is the product of sorrow, when sanctified by the grace of God. Not that sorrow necessarily makes us holy, because that is the prerogative of the divine Spirit; and, as a matter of fact, many sufferers are hard and complaining and unlovely. But that sorrow predisposes us to turn from the distractions of earth to receive those influences of the grace of God which are most operative where the soul is calm and still, sitting in a veiled and darkened room, whilst suffering plies body or mind. Who of us does not feel willing to suffer, if only this precious result shall accrue, that we may be “partakers of his holiness”?

Fruit is another product. Count, if you will, the precious kinds of fruit. There is patience, which endures the Father's will; and trust that sees the Father's hand behind the rough disguise; and peace, that lies still, content with the Father's plan; and righteousness, that conforms itself to the Father's requirements; and love, that clings more closely than ever to the Father's heart; and gentleness, which deals leniently with others, because of what we have learned of ourselves.—F. B. Meyer5

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We are not naturally gentle to all men. There is a harshness in us that needs to be mellowed. We are apt to be heedless of the feelings of others, to forget how many hearts are sore, and carry heavy burdens. We are not gentle toward [others], because our own hearts never have been ploughed. The best universities cannot teach us the divine art of sympathy. We must walk in the deep valleys ourselves, and then we can be guides to other souls. We must feel the strain, and carry the burden, and endure the struggle ourselves, and then we can be touched, and can give help to others in life's sore stress and poignant need.—Mrs. Charles E. Cowman6

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Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and we are all the work of Your hand.”7

Here and in several other passages in the Bible, the Lord is likened to a potter and us to the clay in His hands—clay which He wants to form into a vessel that is fit for His use.8

The potter begins by taking a hunk of clay and placing it on his potter’s wheel. As the wheel turns the clay, he molds and fashions it into what he hopes will be a beautiful vessel. All the while, the clay must move and yield to the movements of the potter’s hand. It takes time.

Sometimes the potter discovers an imperfection, a lump or a mar. When that happens, he will crush the vessel he’s been working on, add a little water to the clay to soften it again, knead it until it’s nice and soft and malleable, and then remake it into a new and better vessel.

At first it probably doesn’t seem like a very good thing to that vessel when its maker suddenly starts mashing and smashing and crushing and remaking it, but in the long run it becomes a better vessel for that.

And just when the vessel thinks the worst is behind, into the white-hot kiln it goes to harden it, but it becomes a stronger vessel for it.

“The vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. … ‘Can I not do with you as this potter?’ says the Lord. ‘Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand!’”9

Does the clay have any right to question the potter’s judgment? “Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Does not the potter have power over the clay?”10

Remember: everything that God does, He does in love. He is making you into a beautiful vessel, uniquely special to Him. He is making you into a useful vessel to bear the water of His love that He wants to pour through you to refresh others. You’re in the best of hands. Trust Him.—Shannon Shayler11

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People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 

Published on Anchor April 2014. Read by Tina Miles.
Music by Michael Dooley.

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