Adversity
I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 7th of December, 2022, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.
Adversity! If we look at Hebrews 13:3, and I am reading it out of the King James Version:
“Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, …”
"Adversity” means difficult or unpleasant situations. I was having a cup of tea the other day with a very dear young man who has asked me to mentor him and be a spiritual dad to him. He is one of the top trumpeters in the world I believe. He probably wouldn’t like me to say that, but that is how I see him. He plays for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and as we were sitting and talking, he said he loved the old hymns and wants to do a project with his orchestra on the old hymns. We are talking about hymns like, “It is well with my soul”, “Oh love that will not let me go,” “Abide with me,” and “Amazing grace.”
As we were talking, I said to him, “It is amazing how every one of those hymns that are absolute “Mount Everests" in the kingdom of Christian music, every one of them is under-girded by adversity, difficult times, hard times. He agreed and then he told me his story. He said his dad, who has since gone to be with the Lord as a very strong Christian, sent his wife and his two children over to Switzerland, the plane crashed and his whole family died. He went over to Switzerland to the funeral and a young lady from the Salvation Army was told to go down and comfort the mourners. She didn’t want to at first but she did eventually and that is where she met this young man’s dad. They became friends and eventually got married and she is his mother today. What a story!
What about Horatio Spafford (It is well with my soul) - four of his daughters perished in the icy cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean when their ship sank. Their father caught the next ship and as he went over the same spot on the Atlantic Ocean, he sat down and he wrote that amazing hymn, “It is well with my soul.”
George Matheson was going blind. His fiancé said, “I can’t live with a blind man”, and she left him, but his sister became his eyes. She helped him in every way she could and then she met a young man and fell in love with him. On her wedding night, he sat in the corner in a chair while everybody was scurrying to and fro, preparing the wedding feast and the dress, etc. and he knew that his eyes, his little sister, would be leaving because she would be going with her husband. He sat down and wrote that hymn, “Oh Love that will not let me go, I hide myself in Thee.” He wrote it in a couple of minutes, did not have to edit it and it has become one of the greatest Christian hymns of all time.
Do not be afraid of adversity. Sometimes God uses that situation to bring the best out of us.
Goodbye.