The New Life by Andrew

Andrew Murray on The New Life: Words of God for Young Disciples Text
4. Be a willing pupil. Acknowledge your ignorance. Think not that you understand the will of God.
Ask and expect that the Lord would teach you the lesson that you are to learn in affliction. To the
meek there is the promise of teaching and wisdom. Seek to have the ear open, the heart very quiet,
and turned towards God. Know that it is the Father that has placed you in the school of trial: yield
yourself with all willingness to hear you taught. He will bless you greatly in this. (Ps. 25:9;39:2,10;
Isa. 50:4,5)
Ps 25:9 The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
Ps 39:2 I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.
Ps 39:10 Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to
speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth
mine ear to hear as the learned.
Isa 50:5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away
back.
'Happy is the man whom Thou chastenest, and teachest out of Thy law.' 'Count it all joy when ye fall
into manifold temptations,' 'that ye may be perfect, lacking in nothing.' Regard the time of trial as a
time of blessing, as a time of close converse with the Father, of being made partaker of His holiness,
and you shall also rejoicingly say: 'It is good for me that I have been afflicted.'
Father, what thanks shall I express to Thee for the glorious light that Thy word casts upon the dark
trials of this life. Thou wilt by this means teach me, and make me partaker of Thy holiness. Hast Thou
considered the suffering and the death of Thy beloved Son not too much to bring holiness near to me,
and shall I not be willing to endure Thy chastisement to be partaker of it? No: Father, thanks be unto
Thee for Thy precious work: only fulfil Thy counsel in me. Amen.
1. In chastisement it is first of all necessary that we should be possessed by the thought: This is the
will of God. Although the trial comes through our own folly or the perversity of men, we must
acknowledge that it is the will of God that we should be in that suffering by means of that folly or
perversity. We see this clearly in Joseph and the Lord Jesus. Nothing will give us rest but the willing
acknowledgment: this is the will of God.
2. The second thought is: God wills not only the trial, but also the consolation, the power, and the
blessing in it. He who acknowledges the will of God in the chastisement itself is on the way to see and
experience the accompaniments also as the will of God.
3. The will of God is as perfect as He Himself: let us not be afraid to surrender ourselves to it: no one
suffers loss by deeming the will of God unconditionally good.
4. This is holiness: to know and to adore the will of God, to unite one's self wholly with it.
5. Pray, seek not comfort in trial in connection with men. Do not mingle too much with them: see to it
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