We are exactly where God intended us to be
The place in which you find yourself, is exactly where the master desires you to live your life. "Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident: It is the very place God meant for thee."There is no haphazard in this world.
God leads every one of his children by the right way. He knows where and under what influences each particular life will ripen best. One tree grows best in the sheltered valley, another by the water's edge, another on the bleak mountain-top swept by storms. There is always adaptation in nature.
Every tree or plant is found in the locality where the conditions of its growth exist, and does God give more thought to the trees and plants than to his own children? He places us amid circumstances and experiences in which our life will grow and ripen best. We may think we would ripen more quickly in a more easy and luxurious life, but God knows what is best; he makes no mistakes.
There is a little fable which says that a primrose growing by itself in a shady corner of the garden became discontented as it saw the other flowers in their beds of sunshine, and begged to be removed to a more conspicuous place. Its prayer was granted. The gardener transplanted it to a more showy and sunny spot. It was greatly pleased, but there came a change over it immediately.
Its blossoms lost much of their beauty and it became pale and sickly.
The hot sun caused them to faint and wither. So it prayed again to be taken back to its old place in the shade. The wise gardner knows best where to plant each flower, and so God, knows where his people will best grow into what he would have them to be. Some require the fierce storms, some will only thrive spiritually in the shadow of worldly adversity, and some come to ripeness more sweetly under the soft and gentle influences of prosperity whose beauty rough experiences would mar. He knows what is best for each one.
When God chooses a home for us, he fits us for its trials. He adapts his grace to each one's necessity. For rough, flinty paths, he provides shoes of iron. He never sends any one to climb sharp, rugged mountain-sides wearing silken slippers. He gives always grace sufficient. As the burden grows heavier, the strength increases.
As the difficulties thicken, the angels draws closer.
As the trials become sorer, the trusting heart grows calmer.
Jesus always sees his disciples when they are toiling in the waves, and at the right moment comes to deliver them. Thus, it becomes possible to live a true and victorious life in any circumstances.
Instead, then, of yielding to discouragement when trials multiply and it becomes hard to live right, or of being satisfied with a broken peace and a very faulty life, it should be the settled purpose of each one to live, through the grace of God, a patient, gentle and unspotted life in the place and amid the circumstances allotted. The true victory is not found in escaping or evading trials, but in rightly meeting and enduring them.
The tree that grows where tempests toss its boughs and bend its trunk, often almost to breaking, is more firmly rooted than the tree which grows in the sequestered valley where no storm every brings stress or strain.
The same is true in life. The grandest character is grown in hardship. Effeminacy springs out of luxury. The best men the world ever knew have been brought up in the school of adversity and hardship.
Besides, it is no heroism to live patiently where there is no provocation, bravely where there is nothing to perturb. Not the hermit's cave, but the heart of busy life, tests as well as makes character. If we can live patiently, lovingly and cheerfully amid all our frets and irritations day after day, year after year, that is grander heroism than the farthest-famed military exploits, for he that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city.
Yet we must keep through all a brave heart, an unfaltering purpose and a calm, joyful confidence in God. Temporary defeat should only cause us to lean on Christ more fully. Heaven is on the side of every one who is loyally struggling to do the divine will and to grow into Christ-likeness And that means assured victory to every one whose heart fails not.
"If only we strive to be pure and true,
To each of us there will come an hour
When the tree of life shall burst into flower,
And rain at our feet the glorious dower
Of something grander than ever we knew."
-unknown author
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