How often I am troubled about something that looms ahead, wondering how I am to cope when the time comes. Why do I not bring it at once to the Lord, who stands ready with the next grace for the next thing? Why is it so easy to forget His simple word, “If you need wisdom, I’ll give it to you. If you need strength, it will be there in exact proportion to the difficulties of the day. If you need guidance, I’m your Shepherd. If you need comfort, My name is Comforter.”
Corrie ten Boom was a woman of strong faith and a radiant face. Why? Not because she had not suffered, but because she had, and had responded to that suffering (in a concentration camp during World War II) with trust. Learning the depth of human helplessness and weakness, she turned to her “strong tower” and He was faithful to His promises.
One of the most soul-fortifying pictures I have of her in my mind is of Corrie getting up in the morning, standing up in her solitary cell, and signing in a loud voice so that other prisoners could hear, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus!”
“Oh, I could never have survived,” we say. Well, we were not asked to. But we could have if the Lord had allowed us to be put in her position, and if we had responded as Corrie did, looking to Him for the next grace. I mean, of course, that we could have survived spiritually. The body they may kill, but so what? Jesus said, “do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell” (Luke 12:5). In other words, fear God and become fearless. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can scare you.
**Excerpt originally published in A Path Through Suffering, pp 44-45.