The Eternity Beyond the Mountain

Life lacketh not for troubles, both great and small; and there is One who suffereth them to come. Strange it is, that whensoever trouble cometh, my thoughts are turned unto him. In days of ease his name cometh seldom to my mind; in days of affliction it is the first word upon my lips. At times I beseech him for strength to endure. At times I ask of him, with a trembling heart, “Wherefore givest thou me these troubles?”

When troubles come one by one, I am able to bear them. But there are seasons when they are heaped one upon another, and rise up as a mountain whose end I cannot see. In such seasons I think not so much how I may climb the mountain, as what lieth beyond it: a place where no trouble of this earth may reach. And my soul longeth for the eternity that is truly there.

When I look back, I perceive that God was at work in those troubles. My faults, which were multiplied beyond number, he was cutting away layer by layer, as a carver with his chisel. And as the potter purgeth the clay of stones and dross before he fashioneth a vessel, so was he preparing me. The work is grievous; yet his hands neither slumber nor sleep; they faint not, neither are they weary. Even when I am spent, his hands cease not from their labour.

When I come unto this, shame covereth me. He it is that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up unto that dreadful cross. And unto him I said, “Wherefore givest thou me these troubles?” That in me which asked it is now put to the blush. Surely I supposed that I might be conformed to his likeness without any trouble at all; as though an image might be finished which the chisel never touched, or a vessel fashioned of clay that was never purged.

I give thanks that he hath suffered the troubles of my life, both great and small. They draw me unto the Lord. They bring to remembrance the faults I had forgotten; they conform me, little by little, unto his likeness; and they cause my soul to long for the eternity that lieth beyond this world.



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