Two Ways
111
Some have felt tempted to take themselves from the work, to labor
with their hands. I saw that if the hand of God should be taken from
them, and they be left subject to disease and death, then they would
know what trouble is. It is a fearful thing to murmur against God.
They do not bear in mind that the way which they are traveling is a
rugged, self-denying, self-crucifying way, and they must not expect
everything to move on as smoothly as though they were traveling in
the broad road.
I saw that some of the servants of God, even ministers, are so easily
discouraged, self is so quickly hurt, that they imagine themselves
slighted and injured when it is not so. They think their lot hard. Such
realize not how they would feel should the sustaining hand of God
be withdrawn, and they pass through anguish of soul. They would
then find their lot tenfold harder than it was before, while they were
employed in the work of God, suffering trials and privations, yet withal
having the Lord’s approbation.
Some that are laboring in the cause of God know not when they do
have an easy time. They have had so few privations, and know so little
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of want or wearing labor or burden of soul, that when they have an
easy time, when they are favored of God and almost entirely free from
anguish of spirit, they know it not, and think their trials great. I saw
that unless such have a spirit of self-sacrifice, and are ready to labor
cheerfully, not sparing themselves, God will release them. He will
not acknowledge them as His self-sacrificing servants, but will raise
up those who will labor, not slothfully, but in earnest, and will know
when they have an easy time. God’s servants must feel the burden of
souls, and weep between the porch and the altar, crying, “Spare Thy
people, Lord.”
Some of the servants of God have given up their lives to spend and
be spent for the cause of God, until their constitutions are broken down,
and they are almost worn out with mental labor, incessant care, toil,
and privations. Others have not had, and would not take, the burden
upon them. Yet just such ones think they have a hard time, because
they have never experienced hardships. They never have been baptized
into the suffering part, and never will be as long as they manifest so
much weakness and so little fortitude, and love their ease so well.
From what God has shown me, there needs to be a scourging
among the ministers, that the slothful, dilatory, and self-caring ones