[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0719":3},"JULY 19\r\nThe cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? (John 18:11).\r\nThis was a greater thing to say and do than to calm the seas or\r\nraise the dead. Prophets and apostles could work wondrous miracles, but they could not always do and suffer the will of God. To do and\r\nsuffer God's will is still the highest form of faith, the most\r\nsublime Christian achievement To have the bright aspirations of a young life forever blasted; to bear a daily burden never congenial  and to see not relief; to be pinched by poverty when you only\r\ndesire a competency for the good and comfort of loved ones; to be fettered by some incurable physical disability; to be stripped bare    of loved ones until you stand alone to meet the shocks of life-to\r\n\r\nbe able to say in such a school of discipline, \"The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?\" this is faith at its\r\nhighest and spiritual success at the crowning point Great faith is exhibited not so much in ability to do as to suffer. --Dr. Charles   Parkhurst.\r\nTo have a sympathizing God we must have a suffering Saviour, and there is no true fellow-feeling with another save in the heart of\r\nhim who has been afflicted like him.\r\nWe cannot do good to others save at a cost to ourselves, and our afflictions are the price we pay for our ability to sympathize. He\r\nwho would be a helper, must first be a sufferer. He who would be a\r\nsaviour must somewhere and somehow have been upon a cross; and we\r\ncannot have the highest happiness of life in succoring others\r\nwithout tasting the cup which Jesus drank, and submitting to the baptism wherewith He was baptized.\r\nThe most comforting of David's psalms were pressed out by\r\nsuffering; and if Paul had not had his thorn in the flesh we had   missed much of the tenderness which quivers in so many of his letters.\r\nThe present circumstance, which presses so hard against you (if surrendered to Christ), is the best shaped tool in the Father's\r\nhand to chisel you for eternity. Trust Him, then. Do not push away the instrument lest you lose its work.\r\nStrange and difficult indeed We may find it,\r\nBut the blessing that we need Is behind it.\r\nThe school of suffering graduates rare scholars.",1783499793220]