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「憂愁強如喜笑，因為面帶愁容，終必使心歡樂。」（聖經傳道書七章 3 節）
在神的恩典下，有時也有憂愁臨到，作我們生命上的益處。憂愁不是掛慮，憂愁常會帶領我們進入更深。
終日嘻嘻哈哈的人，常是淺薄的人。憂愁是神的犁頭，掘到土的深處，地就能多結果子。如果我們從來沒有墜落過，我們就不需要憂愁；我們只需要屬天的喜樂鼓勵我們進入更深；可是我們曾墜落過，我們就需要憂愁帶領我們省察、痛悔、認識自己。所以憂愁常使我們多思想、多考慮。
凡是被神大用的人，都受過憂愁。因為神若不將他擘開，就不能用他。
約瑟比雅各其餘的兒子憂愁更多，神用他拯救以色列全家和其他的民族。因此，聖靈說：「約瑟是多結果子的樹枝，是泉旁多結果的枝子，他的枝條探出牆外。」（聖經創世紀四十九章 22 節）；大衛和保羅也都經歷過不少憂愁。
我們的主為了我們的緣故亦嘗過憂愁，經上稱祂「憂患之子」。神常利用憂愁去訓練祂的僕人。── 屬天的生命（The Heavenly Life）
我們能夠說：「夜是有福的，因為夜裡有星。」照樣，我們也能夠說：「憂愁是有福的，因為憂愁裡面有神的安慰。」── 崔倫保
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“Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” (Eccles. 7:3.)
When sorrow comes under the power of Divine grace, it works out a manifold ministry in our lives. Sorrow reveals unknown depths in the soul, and unknown capabilities of experience and service. Gay, trifling people are always shall, and never suspect the little meannesses in their nature. Sorrow is God’s plowshare that turns up and subsoils the depths of the soul, that it may yield richer harvests. If we had never fallen, or were in a glorified state, then the strong torrents of Divine joy would be the normal force to open up all our souls’ capacities; but in a fallen would, sorrow, with despair taken out of it, is the chosen power to reveal ourselves to ourselves. Hence it is sorrow that makes us think deeply, long, and soberly.
Sorrow makes us go slower and more considerately, and introspect our motives and dispositions. It is sorrow that opens up within us the capacities of the heavenly life, and it is sorrow that makes us willing to launch our capacities on a boundless sea of service for God and our fellows.
We may suppose a class of indolent people living at the base of a great mountain range, who had never ventured to explore the valleys and canyons back in the mountains; and some day, when a great thunderstorm goes careening through the mountains, it turns the hidden glens into echoing trumpets, and reveals the inner recesses of the valley, like the convolutions of a monster shell, and then the dwellers at the foot of the hills are astonished at the labyrinths and unexplored recesses of a region so near by, and yet so little known. So it is with many souls who indolently live on the outer edge of their own natures until great thunderstorms of sorrow reveal hidden depths within that were never hitherto suspected.
God never uses anybody to a large degree, until after He breaks that one all to pieces. Joseph had more sorrow than all the other sons of Jacob, and it led him out into a ministry of bread for all nations. For this reason, the Holy Spirit said of him, “Joseph is a fruitful bough… by a well, whose branches run over the wall” (Gen. 49:22). It takes sorrow to widen the soul. --- The Heavenly Life.
The dark brown mould’s upturned By the sharp-pointed plow; And I’ve a lesson learned. My life is but a field, Stretched out beneath God’s sky, Some harvest rich to yield.
Where grows the golden grain? Where faith? Where sympathy? In a furrow cut by pain.
--- Maltbie D. Babcock.
Every person and every nation must take lessons in God’s school of adversity. “We can say, ‘Blessed is night, for it reveals to us the stars’ In the same way we can say, ‘Blessed is sorrow, for it reveals God’s comfort.’ The floods washed away home and mill, all the poor man had in the world. But as he stood on the scene of his loss, after the water had subsided, broken-hearted and discouraged, he saw something shining in the bank which the waters had washed bare. ‘It looks like gold,’ he said. It was gold. The flood which had beggared him made him rich. So it is ofttimes in life.” --- H.C. Trumbull.
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