0103 密云和黑暗
密云和幽暗，在祂的四围。《诗篇97:2》
一个尚未被神的灵重生的人会告诉你：耶稣的教导很简单。但当他受圣灵的洗，他就会发现「密云和幽暗，在祂的四围…。」当我们与耶稣基督的教训密切接触时，我们第一次意识到这一点。要完全理解耶稣教训的唯一可能途径，乃是透过神的灵在我们里面光照我们。如果我们从未将我们散漫、宗教性的鞋子从我们散漫、宗教性的脚脱下，就是除去我们与神接触的所有过度的随意，那么我们曾否站在祂的面前，那是令人怀疑的。那些轻率和不尊敬地接近神的人，是从未认识耶稣基督的人。只有在明白耶稣基督作为的惊喜和自由之后，随之而来的才是认识祂所是的深奥「幽暗」。
耶稣说：「我对你们所说的话就是灵，就是生命。」（约翰福音6:63）。曾经，圣经对我们来说只是很多的话，就是「云彩和黑暗」；然后，突然间，这些话语因为耶稣在我们的境遇中再度向我们说出，就变成新的，变成灵和生命。这就是神对我们说话的方式；不是透过异象和异梦，而是透过祂的话。当人来到神面前，那是借着最简单的方式 — 话语。
来自章伯斯的智慧
我们没有根本上的自由；外在境遇不在我们手中，而是在神的手中，我们唯一的自由是在于我们与神的个人关系。我们不为所处的环境负责，但我们要为允许这些环境如何影响我们而负责；我们可以让它们压倒我们，或让它们改变我们成为神要我们所是的人。《改变像祂的样式》
0103 Clouds and Darkness
Clouds and darkness surround Him… —Psalm 97:2
A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that “clouds and darkness surround Him….” When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet— getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God— it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. Only after the amazing delight and liberty of realizing what Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable “darkness” of realizing who He is.
Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Once, the Bible was just so many words to us — “clouds and darkness”— then, suddenly, the words become spirit and life because Jesus re-speaks them to us when our circumstances make the words new. That is the way God speaks to us; not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most simple way— words.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not fundamentally free; external circumstances are not in our hands, they are in God’s hands, the one thing in which we are free is in our personal relationship to God. We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be. Conformed to His Image, 354 L