Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
A fundamental question we must settle is whether God is righteous, and whether He is good. We read in Hebrews 6:10 that "God is not unrighteous," meaning that He is indeed righteous. And we read in Psalm 103 that He is like a father who pities His children, that He is merciful and gracious (vss. 13, 8).
Believing who He is must be settled in our hearts, for he who comes to God must believe two things: (1) that He is, that He exists, and (2) that He rewards those who diligently pursue knowing Him (Heb. 11:6). Jesus likened God to a father who gives his children food when they are hungry. "What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" (Luke 11:11). Then He went on to explain that our heavenly Father is more kind than any earthly father. That being true, then we must conclude that He is not trying to make it difficult for people to have eternal life in His kingdom. He does not send difficulties and disappointments in order to try to break our confidence in Him, but because we are living in the midst of a great controversy between Christ and Satan, we have to meet trials that inevitably test our faith. The only way to avoid them would be to go to the grave.
Even Jesus, God's only begotten, beloved Son was forced to meet severe trials, the greatest of which was the experience of feeling forsaken of God while He hung on His cross in the darkness. Meeting strange and bitter trials is not inconsistent with knowing that the Father loves you even as He loves His own Son; there may be even a more understandable realization of God's love in the midst of trials. When every other voice is stilled and you are alone before God wrestling with your trials, your soul may sense the nearness and tender love of Christ more keenly during trials. Peter says, "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings" (1 Peter 4:12, 13).
There is an old-fashioned term seldom heard today, "Christian experience." It encompasses the breadth of one's first-hand knowledge of God experienced in sunshine and shadow, trials borne which establish one "in the faith." It's a precious acquirement! It's something no one can take from you, not even Satan. Ask God to give it to you; but remember He can't do so except through giving you "experience" itself. When the "144,000" sing "a new song before the throne" they will not be reading notes in hymnbooks; John says they "learn that song" (Rev. 14:1-3). How? By experience!
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 19, 2000.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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