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「我們....遭遇苦難，被壓太重....甚至連活命的指望都絕了。自己心裡也斷定是必死的，叫我們不靠自己，只靠叫死人復活的神。」（聖經哥林多後書一章 8/9 節）
遭遇苦難，常使我們重視生命。每一次死裡逃生之後，我們覺得這真是一個新的開始，該怎樣多事神事人。遭遇苦難，也使我們能諒解、同情別人的苦難。
人們總常喜歡批評別人沒有信心，逃避試煉；但是曾經苦難的人決不如此，他知道、懂得別人所遭遇的苦是什麼。
苦難是催逼我們前進的必需品，正如船中的爐火是使船駛行的必需品一般。── 信宣（A. B. Simpson）
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"I was crushed...so much so that I despaired even of life, but that was to make me rely not on myself, but on the God who raises the dead."(2 Cor. 1:8, 9.)
THE pressure of hard places makes us value life. Every time our life is given back to us from such a trial, it is like a new beginning, and we learn better how much it is worth, and make more of it for God and man. The pressure helps us to understand the trials of others, and fits us to help and sympathize with them.
There is a shallow, superficial nature, that gets hold of a theory or a promise lightly, and talks very glibly about the distrust of those who shrink from every trial; but the man or woman who has suffered much never does this, but is very tender and gentle, and knows what suffering really menas. This is what Paul meant when he said, "Death worketh in you."
Trials and hard places are needed to press us forward, even as the furnace fires in the hold of that mighty ship give force that moves the piston, drives the engine, and propels that great vessel across the sea in the face of the winds and waves. --- A. B. Simpson.
"Out of the presses of pain,
Cometh the soul's best wine;
And the eyes that have shed no rain,
Can shed but little shine.'
"Pressed out of measure and pressed to all lenght;
Pressed so intensely it seems, beyond strenght;
Pressed in the body and pressed in the soul,
Pressed in the mind till the dark surges roll.
Pressure by foes, and a pressure from friends.
Pressure on pressure, till life nearly ends.
"Pressed into knowing no helper but God;
Pressed into loving the staff and the rod.
Pressed into liberty where noting clings;
Pressed into faith for impossible things.
Pressed into living a life in the Lord,
Pressed into living a Christ-life outpoured."
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