How we can have faith on hard days
Today I lead a service of memorial for a dear friend who died of cancer last Sunday. As I prepared for that service I read my morning dose of Spurgeon and knew the Lord had provided it for me. My friend, like many had suffered greatly before he entered into the salvation and joy of the Lord's forever embrace in the kingdom of heaven. The Lord gave me an answer I have heard before but one I needed to hear again today. It is sad and hard to live East of Eden, but we are not alone for our King Jesus has come to join us and to give us hope. I wanted to share this in light of my own sorrow today and my hope in the gospel.Saturday, May 31, 2014This Morning's MeditationC. H. Spurgeon"The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron."—2 Samuel 15:23.AVID passed that gloomy brook when flying with his mourning company from his traitor son. The man after God's own heart was not exempt from trouble, nay, his life was full of it. He was both the Lord's Anointed, and the Lord's Afflicted. Why then should we expect to escape? At sorrow's gates the noblest of our race have waited with ashes on their heads, wherefore then should we complain as though some strange thing had happened unto us?The KING of kings himself was not favoured with a more cheerful or royal road. He passed over the filthy ditch of Kidron, through which the filth of Jerusalem flowed. God had one Son without sin, but not a single child without the rod. It is a great joy to believe that Jesus has been tempted in all points like as we are. What is our Kidron this morning? Is it a faithless friend, a sad bereavement, a slanderous reproach, a dark foreboding? The King has passed over all these. Is it bodily pain, poverty, persecution, or contempt? Over each of these Kidrons the King has gone before us. "In all our afflictions He was afflicted." The idea of strangeness in our trials must be banished at once and for ever, for He who is the Head of all saints, knows by experience the grief which we think so peculiar. All the citizens of Zion must be free of the Honourable Company of Mourners, of which the Prince Immanuel is Head and Captain.Notwithstanding the abasement of David, he yet returned in triumph to his city, and David's Lord arose victorious from the grave; let us then be of good courage, for we also shall win the day. We shall yet with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation, though now for a season we have to pass by the noxious streams of sin and sorrow. Courage, soldiers of the Cross, the King himself triumphed after going over Kidron, and so shall you.