三月十日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/03/0310.mp3″]
经文: 人……日子短少，多有患难。（约伯记十四：1）
知道自己不能避免灾难，实在令人不甚愉快。可是这事实却能使我们谦卑，并防止我们夸口说：“我永不动摇。”（诗三十：6）也能让我们不致将自己的根深扎在这片泥土中，因为我们不久将被移植到天国的花园中。让我们撤回要求这短暂福气的呼声。我们若能记住，世上所有的树木已被木匠作了记号，我们就不会轻易将巢筑在其上。我们的爱包含着预期死亡与分离的来临。我们所爱的亲友只是借给我们的，将他们归还债主的时刻可能不远了。属世的赀财也确是如此，财富会长翼飞去。我们的健康也同样是朝不保夕的。我们如同田野中脆弱的花朵，不会永久绽放。世上也没有一处可容我们逃避苦难的利箭。在这短暂的岁月中，没有人能避过忧伤。人的生命是充满苦难的桶，要在其中寻找喜乐比从充满盐水的海洋中寻找蜜糖更困难。不要将你的喜好建立在属世的事上，却要寻求从上面来的事物。地上有虫子来咬，也有贼挖窟窿来偷，在天上却有永不止息和永恒的喜乐。
Evening, March 10
Scripture: “Man … is of few days, and full of trouble.”(Job 14:1)
It may be of great service to us, before we fall asleep, to remember this mournful fact, for it may lead us to set loose by earthly things. There is nothing very pleasant in the recollection that we are not above the shafts of adversity, but it may humble us and prevent our boasting like the Psalmist in our morning’s portion. “My mountain standeth firm: I shall never be moved.” It may stay us from taking too deep root in this soil from which we are so soon to be transplanted into the heavenly garden. Let us recollect the frail tenure upon which we hold our temporal mercies. If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for the woodman’s axe, we should not be so ready to build our nests in them. We should love, but we should love with the love which expects death, and which reckons upon separations. Our dear relations are but loaned to us, and the hour when we must return them to the lender’s hand may be even at the door. The like is certainly true of our worldly goods. Do not riches take to themselves wings and fly away? Our health is equally precarious. Frail flowers of the field, we must not reckon upon blooming for ever. There is a time appointed for weakness and sickness, when we shall have to glorify God by suffering, and not by earnest activity. There is no single point in which we can hope to escape from the sharp arrows of affliction; out of our few days there is not one secure from sorrow. Man’s life is a cask full of bitter wine; he who looks for joy in it had better seek for honey in an ocean of brine. Beloved reader, set not your affections upon things of earth: but seek those things which are above, for here the moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all joys are perpetual and eternal. The path of trouble is the way home. Lord, make this thought a pillow for many a weary head!