We may learn to bear troubles submissively, but to rejoice in them is something which to many seems impossible. But the grace of Christ is equal even to this strange task, enabling us to rejoice in our tribulations. Thousands of Christians have done it. St. Paul himself did it. We remember his “songs in the night” at Philippi.
This is what Christian faith may always do. The secret of it is perfect trust in the will and love of God. None can rejoice in pain or loss who has not a settled confidence in the rightness of God’s ways. Someone tells how a flute is made. Here is a piece of wood. It is solid and hard, and makes no sound. Then a workman takes it and cuts holes in it and makes a rift through it. It is by thus cutting as if destroying it that it is made into a flute which gives forth sweet music. God seems ofttimes to be destroying His children by tribulations, but He is really preparing them to give forth sweet music.