"Open Windows" for April 18 by T. Austin Sparks Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. (Hebrews 12:7 NIV)The Lord may get you off activities and shut you up to inactivity. You go through an awful time and say that the Lord has forsaken you and that all has gone wrong. What is it really? Why, it is growing pains! In the long run, it was not all wrong... it was all right. You came to know the Lord, whereas - before - your whole life was taken up with things. You have been shut up, but you have come to know the Lord inwardly; and you have come to a state of spiritual efficiency which is so much greater than before that you can now cope with the external situation. He was misunderstood, but He was working unto your efficiency - exercising you unto efficiency. These growing pains are terrible, but you cannot help anyone who is suffering from growing pains; you must just stand aside and watch him going through.So through numerous and various directions, this growth takes place by the painful exercise which is produced from the way the Lord is dealing with us. We do learn through suffering. Even the Lord Jesus was made "full grown" - complete - in this sense through suffering. We take the same way unto full growth. It is child training, discipline - learning by way of experience. That is chastening - making us sons out of children, full grown men out of infants.By T. Austin-Sparks from: Maturity - The Lords Desire For His People
_________________Mike
