The Mind of Christ During Difficulties

Facing a trial with the Mind of Christ invites us into a dimension of glory foreign to our knowledge of good and evil. This glimpse into the eternal value of what we are suffering  can set us above the landscape with its rocks and thorns. Remember when Satan tempted the suffering Jesus in the wilderness? None of his appeals to the flesh had any power when up against the Mind of Christ.

In Christ, The Sum of All Spiritual Things, Watchman Nee describes what it is like to face obstacles with The Mind of Christ:

“In 1923 I was invited to preach in a certain city. I took a small boat that was sailing up the Ming River. I noticed that the boat was frequently dragging itself against the river bed, for the water was shallow and the bottom of the river was rugged. Sometimes the boatmen had to pull the boat by ropes up the river. In my prayer I suddenly recalled this incident. I said, ‘God it is easy for You to remove these rocks. How nice it would be for the boat to sail with adequate water underneath it if You simply remove these rocks.’
I read again 2 Corinthians 12, where I found this to be precisely Paul’s prayer. The water was shallow and the rocks protruded sharply up from the river bed. Hence Paul was praying, ‘O God, would that You might remove these rocks that my boat may sail in the water.’ To which God answered, ‘I will not remove these rocks, but I will cause the water to rise. As the water rises, the boat can easily sail through.’ This is God’s doing.”

A. B. Simpson takes the inspirational approach:

“There are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is simply to try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an opportunity of obtaining a larger measure of divine grace.”

In Christ, our knowledge of good and evil no longer has the power. In Christ, we can go behind the veil; He bought our entrance.

Binsey