[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0520":3},"MAY 20\r\nShall I refuse to drink the cup of sorrow which the Father has given me to drink? (John 18.11, Weymouth).\r\nGod takes a thousand times more pains with us than the artist with his picture, by many touches of sorrow, and by many colors of\r\ncircumstance, to bring us into the form which is the highest and noblest in His sight if only we receive His gifts of myrrh in the\r\nright spirit\r\nBut when the cup is put away, and these feelings are stifled or\r\nunheeded, a greater injury is done to the soul that can ever be\r\namended. For no heart can conceive in what surpassing love God giveth us this myrrh; yet this which we ought to receive to our\r\nsouls' good we suffer to pass by us in our sleepy indifference, and\r\n\r\nnothing comes of it\r\nThen we come and complain: \"Alas, Lord! I am so dry, and it is so\r\ndark within me!\" I tell thee, dear child, open thy heart to the pain, and it will do thee more good than if thou wert full of    feeling and devoutness. --Tauler.\r\n\r\nThe cry of man's anguish went up to God, \"Lord take away pain:\r\nThe shadow that darkens the world Thou hast made, The close-coiling chain\r\nThat strangles the heart, the burden that weighs On the wings that would soar,\r\nLord, take away pain from the world Thou hast made, That it love Thee the more.\"\r\nThen answered the Lord to the cry of His world: \"Shall I take away pain,\r\nAnd with it the power of the soul to endure, Made strong by the strain?\r\nShall I take away pity, that knits heart to heart And sacrifice high?\r\nWill ye lose all your heroes that lift from the fire White brows to the sky?\r\nShall I take away love that redeems with a price And smiles at its loss?\r\nCan ye spare from your lives that would climb unto Me The Christ on His cross?\"",1783499793040]