0706 异象变为真实
干渴之地,要变为泉源…《以赛亚书 35:7》
我们在某事实现之前总是先有一个异象【愿景】。当我们意识到这个异象是真实的,但在我们身上尚未成真时,撒旦就带着试探而来,我们倾向于说:即使继续尝试也是没有意义的。我们的异象不但没有成为现实,我们反而进入了羞辱的低谷。
生命并非仅是闲置的矿石,
但从地心阴暗中开采出铁,
经受厄运冲击
方成塑形工具。
【英国著名诗人丁尼生Alfred, Lord Tennyson,1809年8月6日—1892年10月6日】
神给了我们一个异象,然后祂带我们到低谷,打造我们成那个异象的形状;正是在那低谷中,我们许多人放弃消沉了。只要我们有耐心,每一个神赐予的异象都将会成真。想想神拥有多么多的空闲时间!祂从不着急,然而我们总是如此紧张、慌乱、忙碌。当我们还在异象荣耀之光时,我们就迫不及待去行动,但异象尚未在我们身上成真,神必须带我们进入低谷,让我们经历水火磨练,重塑我们成形,直到我们达到祂可信托我们将异象实现的程度。自从神给我们异象以来,祂就一直在工作;祂正在把我们塑造成祂为我们所设定的目标的形状,然而我们却一次又一次地试图逃离这位雕刻家之手,努力把自己打造成我们自己的目标的形状。
神所赐的异象不是高不可及的空中楼阁,而是神要你就在这里成为的异象。让这位陶匠将你放在祂的轮子上,并随其意旋转你;之后,正如神是神,你是你,你至终必将成为与异象一模一样的形状;但在此过程中不要灰心丧气。如果你曾经有过从神而来的异象,你可能试着满足于一个较低的层次,但神绝不会允许这种状况发生。
来自章伯斯的智慧
耶稣基督总是不屈服于我对自己权利的要求。我们的主关于门徒训练的所有教导中,唯一一个基本要素就是舍弃、没有计算、没有任何自私的痕迹。《真的门徒》
0706 Visions Becoming Reality
The parched ground shall become a pool… —Isaiah 35:7
We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.
Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.
God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.
The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Crhist is always unyiedlding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. —Disciples Indeed, 395 L