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「如鷹攪動巢窩，在雛鷹以上兩翅搧展，接取雛鷹，背在兩翼之上，這樣，耶和華獨自引導他，並無外邦神與他同在。」 （聖經申命記卅二章 11/12 節）
我們全能的父常會將祂保護下的雛鷹引到絕壁頂上，推他們下去，好使他們知道自己有飛行的能力；倘使他們遭到了危險 ，祂便立即猝然下降，把他們背在兩翼之上。所以，信徒啊，神如果把我們放在一個非常艱難的地位上，我們只要大膽依賴祂，因為我們深信祂的拯救就在旁邊。 ── 譯自勝利的凱歌（The Song of Victory）
什麼時候神放一個重擔在你上面，祂必放祂自己的膀臂在你下面。
有一枝小花，生長在一棵高大的橡樹蔭下；這枝小花非常尊重那庇護它的樹蔭，也非常寶貴它所享受的安靜。
不久，來了一個樵夫，把橡樹砍了去。小花非常傷心哭道：「啊，我的保護失去了；從此狂風會把我吹倒，大雨會把我打倒！」
小花的天使安慰它道：「不！不！太陽會照耀你，甘霖會滋潤你，你弱小的身軀將長得更為可愛，你張開的花瓣將歡笑於日光之下，人們也會稱讚你說：『這枝小花長得多快啊！橡樹砍去以後，長得更為美麗了！』」
親愛的讀者，你不看見嗎？上帝挪去你的安慰、你的利益，為要叫你長得更美麗。上帝訓練祂的精兵，不能在柔軟的床上訓練，祂必須領他們出去，強迫他們行軍，強迫他們服役；使他們涉河、游江、攀山、負荷。這樣，纔能把他們練成精兵－－並不是給他們穿上精緻的軍服，叫他們在營門前高視闊步，也不是叫他們在公園裡閒蕩逍遙。上帝知道精兵是在戰爭中造成的，不是在平安中造成的。他們必須飽嘗火藥氣味，飽經槍林彈雨。信徒阿，你的上帝要把你造成一個精兵，你願不願意呢？祂把你投在戰爭的火燄中，你豈不該穿上祂給你的全副軍裝來運用祂的得勝呢－－司布眞（C. H. Spurgeon
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“As an eagle strirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.: (Deut. 32:11, 12.)
Our Almighty Parent delights to conduct the tender nestlings of His care to the very edge of the precipice, and even to thrust them off into the steeps of air that they may learn their possession of unrealized power of flight, to be forever a luxury; and if, in the attempt, they be exposed to unwonted power of flight, to be forever a luxury; and if, in the attempt, they be exposed to unwonted peril, He is prepared to swoop beneath them, and to bear them upward on His mighty pinions. When God brings any of His children into a position of unparalleled difficulty, they may always count upon Him to deliver them. --- The Song of Victory.
“When God puts a burden upon you He puts His own arm underneath.”
There is a little plant, small and stunted, growing under the shade of a broad-spreading oak; and this little plant values the shade which covers it, and greatly does it esteem the quiet rest which its noble friend affords. But a blessing is designed for this little plant.
Once upon a time there comes along the woodman, and with his sharp axe he fells the oak. The plant weeps and cries, “ My shelter is departed; every rough wind will blow upon me, and every storm will seek to uproot me!”
“No, no,” saith the angel of that flower; “now will the sun get at thee; now will the shower fall on thee in more copious abundance than before; now thy stunted form shall spring up into loveliness, and they flower, which could never have expanded itself to perfection shall now laugh in to sunshine, and men shall say, ‘How greatly hath that plant increased! How glorious hath become its beauty, through the removal of that which was its shade and its delight!’”
See you not, then, that God may take away your comforts and your privileges, to make you the better Christians? Why the Lord always trains His soldiers, not by letting them lie on feather-beds, but by turning them out, and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long march with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. This is the way in which He makes them soldiers – not by dressing them up in fine uniforms, to swagger at the barrack gates, and to be fine gentlemen in the eyes of the loungers in the park. God knows that soldiers are only to be made in battle; they are not to be grown in peaceful times. We may grow the stuff of which soldiers are made; but warriors are really educated by the smell of powder, in the midst of whizzing bullets and roaring cannonades, not in soft and peaceful times. Well, Christian, may not this account for it all? Is not thy Lord bringing out thy grace and making them grow? Is He not developing in you the qualities of the soldier by throwing you into the heat of battle, and should you not use every appliance to come off conqueror? ---Spurgeon.
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