「我父所給我的那杯，我豈可不喝？」－約翰福音18:11
先知和使徒們可以常行出許多神蹟奇事，但他們卻不常願意實行神的旨意，並因著這旨意受苦。
願意遵行、忍受神的旨意是信心最高的表現，也是基督徒所能成就最偉大的事。
－巴克賀斯特
要能有一位能對我們表同情的神，必須先有一位受苦的救主；若祂未曾為著萬事一一嘗過苦味，祂就無法俯就、同情我們。
我們若不出代價，就無法幫助人；我們付上苦難的代價有多少，我們所能同情憐憫的能力也有多少。
一個能帶給人幫助的人，必須先經過苦難的鍛鍊；一個想拯救世人的人，必須先經過十字架的對付。若我們要享受帶給人福樂之最大喜樂，就不能免去主所喝過的杯，並祂所經過的浸。
大衛最安慰人心的詩篇，是在苦難的壓榨中創作出來的；若保羅肉身上的那根刺離開了，他書信中溫柔安慰的部份，也就無法流露。
如今環繞在你身邊所有艱苦的環境，都是天父手中最精巧的工具，要在你身上鑿出永恆。
因此你該信靠神，不推開祂的工具，以免壞了祂手的工作。
"The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11)This was a greater thing to say and do than to calm the seas or raise the dead. Prophets and apostles could work wondrous miracles, but they could not always do and suffer the will of God. To do and suffer God's will is still the highest form of faith, the mos t sublime Christian achievement. To have the bright aspirations of a young life forever blasted; to bear a daily burden never congenial and to see no relief; to be pinched by poverty when you only desire 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 be 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 highest and spiritual success at the crowning point. Great faith is exhibited not so much in ability to do as to suffer. --Dr. Charles Parkhurst
To have a sympathizing God we must have a suffering Saviour, and there is no true fellow-feeling with another save in the heart of him who has been afflicted like him.
We 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 who would be a helper, must first be a sufferer. He who would be a saviour must somewhere and somehow have been upon a cross; and we cannot have the highest happiness of life in succoring others without tasting the cup which Jesus drank, and submitting to the baptism wherewith He was baptized.
The most comforting of David's psalms were pressed out by suffering; and if Paul had not had his thorn in the flesh we had missed much of that tenderness which quivers in so many of his letters.
The present circumstance, which presses so hard against you if surrendered to Christ., is the best shaped tool in the Father's hand to chisel you for eternity. Trust Him, then. Do not push away the instrument lest you lose its work."
