Steel is the product of iron plus fire. Soil is rock plus heat and the crushing of glaciers. Linen is flax plus the water that cleans it, the comb that separates it, the flail that pounds it and the shuttle that weaves it. In the same way, the development of a persons character requires a plus attached to it, for great character is not made through high living but through suffering. And the world does not forget people of great character.
I once was told a story of a mother who brought a crippled boy with a hunched back into her home as a companion for her own son. She warned her son to be very careful not to refer to the other boy's deformity, since this was a sensitive matter to him. And she encouraged him to play with his new friend as if he were a normal child. But after listening to her son play with him for a few minutes, she heard him ask his new playmate, "Do you know what that is on your back?" The crippled boy was embarrassed, hesitated a moment, but before he could respond, his friend answered the question for him by saying, "It is the box that holds your wings, and someday God is going to break it open, and you will fly away to be an angel."
I told that story to say this: The very things that we now rebel against are the instruments God has chosen to use to perfect our character and to mold us into what He intended in the first place. We are all placed under varying degrees of pressure and heat. Who we are and what we become depends on how we respond to this heat and pressure. Do we wilt and fold under the strain or do we persevere, striving onward towards the goal that is the ultimate prize?
I once was told a story of a mother who brought a crippled boy with a hunched back into her home as a companion for her own son. She warned her son to be very careful not to refer to the other boy's deformity, since this was a sensitive matter to him. And she encouraged him to play with his new friend as if he were a normal child. But after listening to her son play with him for a few minutes, she heard him ask his new playmate, "Do you know what that is on your back?" The crippled boy was embarrassed, hesitated a moment, but before he could respond, his friend answered the question for him by saying, "It is the box that holds your wings, and someday God is going to break it open, and you will fly away to be an angel."
I told that story to say this: The very things that we now rebel against are the instruments God has chosen to use to perfect our character and to mold us into what He intended in the first place. We are all placed under varying degrees of pressure and heat. Who we are and what we become depends on how we respond to this heat and pressure. Do we wilt and fold under the strain or do we persevere, striving onward towards the goal that is the ultimate prize?
Comments
Post a Comment