No One Said It Would Be Easy

February 6  No One Said It Would Be Easy

 

Keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Tim. 4:5, NIV.

No one said that doing God's will would be easy. At least it wasn't for the newly committed preacher James White. For one thing he was poor. As he set out for "the great harvest-field," he recalled, "I had neither horse, saddle, briddle, nor money, yet felt I must go. I had used my last winter's earnings in necessary clothing, in attending Second-Advent meetings, and in the purchase of books and the [prophetic] chart. But my father offered me the use of a horse for the winter, and Elder Polley gave me a saddle with both pads torn off, and several pieces of an old bridal."

Poor he was, but go he did. But not eveveryone was happy with his arrival. At one place he reports a snowball barely missing his head while he was praying. Then came a deluge of them along with the noise of a mob that he had to shout to overcome. "My clothing and also my Bible," he called, "were wet from the melted fragments of a hundred snowballs."

What to do became the challenge. "That was no time for logic," he concluded, "so I closed my Bible and entered into a description of the terrors of the day of God. . .Repent and converted" was his appeal. At the end of the meeting nearly 100 arose for prayer.

God never said it would be easy. But just because the going is hard does not mean that God's blessing is not with us. James White as a young preacher learned to grow in spite of difficulties. And in the process he deveoloped innovative approaches that spoke to the hearts and minds of people.

In one noisy place where he had a difficult time even making it to the pulpit, the first words they heard from his lips were a song loud and clear:

"You will see your Lord a coming,
 You will see your Lord a coming,
 You will see your Lord a coming,
 In a few more days,
  While a band of music,
  While a band of music,
  While a band of music,
 Shall be chanting through the air."

His song not only stilled the crowd, but it expressed the hope of the soon approaching Advent to which he had given his life. God never told us that it would be easy to follow Jesus. But He did promise blessings unlimited when we do.

The world, with everything in it, is yours so far as it can do you good. Even the enmity of the wicked will prove a blessing by disciplining you for heaven. If "ye are Christ's," "all things are yours." 1 Corinthians 3:23, 21(TFMB 110).