8月5日 令人迷惘的呼召

先知所写的一切事，都要成就在人子身上……他们不晓得所说的是什么。（路十八31、34）

神要耶稣基督所受的，似乎是彻头彻尾的酷灾。耶稣基督叫门徒亲眼看他受死，领他们到心碎欲绝的境地。耶稣基督的一生，除了从神的观点以外，无论从任何角度看来，都是绝对的惨败。可是，在人看来的失败，在神却为极大的胜利，因为神的心思永远与人的不同。在我们生命中，令人狐疑的呼召也会临到。神的呼召永不明确的说明，乃是内蕴的。神的呼召像海洋的呼召，除了那与海有缘的人外，没有人听得见。神的呼召难以明说，因为他的呼召是要人作他的战友，完成他的计划。而考验就是要我们相信神确知自己的目的。事情发生绝非出于偶然，一切全出于神的吩咐。因为神在进行他的计划。

我们若与神相交，又知道他要带我们进入他的计划里去，就不用再追问他的计划到底是怎样。我们在信主的路上愈久，久愈单纯，我们不会再问－－“为什么神让这事发生？”整件事情的背后，是神莫大的催策。“我的结局都有全能者去塑造。”信徒该信赖的，不是自己的智慧，而是神的智慧聪明。我们若有自己的目标，就会破坏那单纯与悠然的安息，而这正是神儿女该有的特征。

祈祷◆噢，主啊，释放我，我极之渴望与你有着单纯的关系，以致能改变任何事情，并向周遭的人散播恩福和福气。

August 5 The Baffling Call Of God

“And all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished . . . And they understood none of these things.” Luke 18:31, 34

God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ's life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God's. But what seemed failure from man's standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God's, because God's purpose is never man's purpose.

There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes.

If we are in communion with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say – Now why did God allow this and that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. “There's a divinity that shapes our ends.” A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.