By James McConkey
“Afterwards it yieldeth ... fruit”
The summer showers are falling. The poet stands by the window watching them. They are beating and buffeting the earth with their fierce downpour. But the poet sees in his imaginings more than the showers which are falling before his eyes. He sees myriads of lovely flowers which shall soon be breaking forth from the watered earth, filling it with matchless beauty and fragrance. And so he sings:
It isn’t raining rain for me, it’s raining daffodils;
In every dimpling drop I see wildflowers upon the hills.
A cloud of gray engulfs the day, and overwhelms the town;
It isn’t raining rain for me: it’s raining roses down.
Perchance someone … is even now saying: “O God, it is raining hard for me tonight. Testings are raining upon me which seem beyond my power to endure. Disappointments are raining fast, to the utter defeat of all my chosen plans. Bereavements are raining into my life, which are making my shrinking heart quiver in its intensity of suffering. The rain of affliction is surely beating down upon my soul these days.”
Withal, friend, you are mistaken. It isn’t raining rain for you. It’s raining blessing. For, if you will but believe your Father’s word, under that beating rain are springing up spiritual flowers of such fragrance and beauty, as never before grew…
You indeed see the rain. But do you see, also, the flowers? You are pained by the testings. But God sees the sweet flower of faith which is springing up in your life under those very trials. You shrink from the suffering. But God sees the tender compassion for other sufferers which is finding birth in your soul. You see the disappointments, but God sees the sweet submission to His divine and perfect will which is growing out of the very same. Your heart winces under the sore bereavement. But God sees the deepening and enriching which that sorrow has brought to you.
It isn’t raining afflictions for you. It is raining tenderness, love, compassion, patience, and a thousand other flowers and fruits of the blessed Spirit which are bringing into your life such a spiritual enrichment as all the fullness of worldly prosperity and ease was never able to beget in your innermost soul.
And are you saying: “But, what a fruitless branch I must be that God must needs so to purge me?” Nay, not so. Have you not noticed what kind of branches it is that God purges? Hear His word: “Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it.”1 It is not the fruitless but the fruitful branch which is purged. And why? “That it may bring forth more fruit.”
Purging is, therefore, not the proof of worthlessness, but the proof of fruit. For it is only the fruit-bearers that are purged. The others are “taken away.” Wherefore His purging is both the proof that there is fruit and the pledge that there shall be more.
“Faint not…”
How the soul sinks, the heart grows sick, and the faith staggers under the keen trials and testings which come into our lives in times of special bereavement and suffering. “I cannot bear up any longer; I am fainting under this providence. What shall I do? God tells me not to faint.2 But what can one do when he is fainting?”
What do you do when you are about to faint physically? You cannot do anything. You cease from your own doing. In your faintness, you fall upon the shoulder of some strong loved one. You lean hard. You rest. You lie still and trust, until your fainting soul comes back to its own. It is so when we are tempted to faint under affliction. God’s message to us is not, “Be strong and of good courage,”3 for He knows our strength and courage have fled away. But it is that sweet word: “Be still, and know that I am God.”4
Hudson Taylor was so feeble in the closing months of his life that he wrote a dear friend, “I am so weak I cannot work; I cannot read my Bible; I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God’s arms like a little child, and trust.” This wondrous man of God with all his spiritual power came to a place of physical suffering and weakness where he could only lie still and trust. And that is all God asks of you, His dear child, when you grow faint in the fierce fires of affliction. Do not try to be strong. Just be still, and know that He is God and will sustain you, and bring you through.
Remember the love of God
[T]here was found in an African mine the most magnificent diamond in the world’s history. It was presented to the king of England to blaze in his crown of state. The king sent it to Amsterdam to be cut. It was put in the hands of an expert lapidary. And what do you suppose he did with it? He took this gem of priceless value. He cut a notch in it. Then he struck it a hard blow with his instrument and lo! The superb jewel lay in his hand, cleft in twain. What recklessness! What wastefulness! What criminal carelessness!
Not so. For days and weeks that blow had been studied and planned. Drawings and models had been made of the gem. Its quality, its defects, its lines of cleavage had all been studied with minutest care. The man to whom it was committed was one of the most skillful lapidaries in the world. Do you say that blow was a mistake? Nay. It was the climax of the lapidary’s skill. When he struck that blow, he did the one thing which would bring that gem to its most perfect shapeliness, radiance, and jeweled splendor. That blow which seemed to ruin the superb precious stone was in fact its perfect redemption. For, from these two halves were wrought the two magnificent gems which the skilled eye of the lapidary saw hidden in the rough, uncut stone as it came from the mines.
So, sometimes, God lets a stinging blow fall upon your life. The blood spurts. The nerves wince. The soul cries out in an agony of wondering protest. The blow seems to you an appalling mistake. But it is not, for you are the most priceless jewel in the world to God. And He is the most skilled lapidary in the universe. Someday you are to blaze in the diadem of the King. As you lie in His hand now He knows just how to deal with you. Not a blow will be permitted to fall upon your shrinking soul but that the love of God permits it, and works out from its depths great blessing and spiritual enrichment unseen, and unthought-of by you.
Remember the fatherhood of God
A visitor at a school for the deaf and [mute] was writing questions on the blackboard for the children. By and by he wrote this sentence: “Why has God made me to hear and speak, and made you deaf and [mute]?” The awful sentence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow in the face. They sat palsied before that dreadful “why.” And then a little girl arose. Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming with tears. Straight to the board she walked, and, picking up the crayon wrote with firm hand these precious words: “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight!”5
What a reply! It reaches up and lays hold of an eternal truth upon which the maturest believer as well as the youngest child of God may alike unshakably rest—the truth that God is your Father. Do you mean that? Do you really and fully believe that? When you do, then your dove of faith will no longer wander in weary unrest, but will settle down forever in its eternal resting place of peace.
“Your Father!” Why, that takes in everything! Because He is your Father, how could He fail, or forget you? Look into your own father-heart and mark the strength, the tenderness, the unspeakableness of your love for that winsome little one enshrined in your heart of hearts. Then say to yourself, “God’s Father-love for me infinitely surpasses all this.”
Excerpted from “Chastening,” by James McConkey, originally published in the 1940s. Published on Anchor April 2014. Read by Simon Peterson.
1 John 15:2.
2 See Galatians 6:9.
3 Joshua 1:9.
4 Psalm 46:10.
5 Matthew 11:26.
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