October 18

God’s oaks

“After that ye have suffered . . . strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10).
“I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me” (Ezra 7:28).

When God means to grow an oak the acorn is not cast into a hothouse. It is flung into the outdoor earth and struggles bravely upward through the mountain sod. It strikes its roots far below the surface and takes mighty hold, as with subterranean cables. The winter comes down oft and again upon it. The tempest wrestles with its brawny boughs. And through the regimen of storm and gale it earns its imperial place—the monarch of the forest. God leaves the old tree to “try” it, and it comes out an oak!


So when God would have an oak-like Christian, He exposes that Christian to a discipline of toil or of trial—or of both combined. But out from these terrible trials comes the triumphant child of God—wet with the baptism of suffering and radiant as “mercy” rising from the river of death to the pearly gates. And as she cometh out she exclaims with adoring gratitude, “Oh, my God! Thou hast tried me—but when Thou didst try me, I came forth as gold!” For:
“The deepest trials that we know
A higher grace discloses;
Men saw the thorns on Jesus’ brow
But angels saw the roses!”
—Theodore Cuyler.

I find in all Christians who have passed through much tribulation, a certain quality or ripeness which I am of the opinion can be formed in no other school. Just as a certain degree of solar heat is necessary to bring the finest fruits to perfection, so is fiery trial indispensable for ripening the inner man.
—Tholuck.

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