「耶和華...在那裡試驗他們。」－出埃及記15:25
有的房間測試鋼的扭力，紀錄鋼被絞斷時承受力量的數據；有的測試鋼的張力，紀錄鋼拉斷時的數據；有的則測試壓力，紀錄壓碎時的力道。
於是廠長便知道鋼在每種不同力度下的表現值；他清楚知道鋼在造船、建屋、蓋橋等各種狀況下展現的能力，因為他都一一地試驗過了。
神的孩子也常受這樣的試驗。
神不盼望我們如同玻璃或陶瓷花瓶那麼不堪一擊，祂願意我們都像堅韌頑強的鋼鐵，禁得起絞動、拉扯和擠壓。
祂不盼望我們是溫室花朵，或是隨風起舞的散沙；祂盼望我們成為在暴雨裡昂然的橡樹，成為狂風下不移的花崗岩。
因此祂需要將我們帶進屬天的試驗所，使我們鍛鍊成鋼。
其實，照著我們多年的經歷，我們都可以確切的認定：苦難，的確是神信心的試驗所。
－J. H. M.
"There he proved them" (Exod. 15:25).I stood once in the test room of a great steel mill. All around me were little partitions and compartments. Steel had been tested to the limit, and marked with figures that showed its breaking point. Some pieces had been twisted until they broke, and the strength of torsion was marked on them. Some had been stretched to the breaking point and their tensile strength indicated. Some had been compressed to the crushing point, and also marked. The master of the steel mill knew just what these pieces of steel would stand under strain. He knew just what they would bear if placed in the great ship, building, or bridge. He knew this because his testing room revealed it.
It is often so with God's children. God does not want us to be like vases of glass or porcelain. He would have us like these toughened pieces of steel, able to bear twisting and crushing to the uttermost without collapse.
He wants us to be, not hothouse plants, but storm-beaten oaks; not sand dunes driven with every gust of wind, but granite rocks withstanding the fiercest storms. To make us such He must needs bring us into His testing room of suffering.
Many of us need no other argument than our own experiences to prove that suffering is indeed God's testing room of faith.--J. H. M.
