A Bottle In The Smoke — O, Beloved!

For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

— Psalm 119:83

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But there are other trials: and this brings us to remark, that our trials frequently result from our comforts. What makes the smoke? Why, it is the fire, by which the Arab warms his hands, that smokes his bottle, and smokes him too. So, beloved, our comforts usually furnish us with troubles. It is the law of nature, that there should never be a good, without having an ill connected with it. What if the stream fertilize the land? It can sometimes drown the inhabitants. What if the fire cheer us? doth it not frequently consume our dwellings? What if the sun enlighten us? does he not sometimes scorch and smite us with his heat? What if the rain bring forth our food, and cause the flowers to blossom on the face of the earth? does it not also break the young blossom from the trees, and cause many diseases? There is nothing good without its ill, there is no fire without its smoke. The fire of our comfort will always have the smoke of trial with it. You will find it so, if you instance the comforts you have in your own family. You have relations; mark you, every relationship engenders its trial, and every fresh relationship upon which you enter opens to you, at one time certainly, a new source of joys, but infallibly also a new source of sorrows.

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Just as the birds that visit us fly away from us, so do our joys bring sorrow with them. In fact, joy and sorrow are twins; the blood which runs in the veins of sorrow, runs in the veins of joy too. For what is the blood of sorrow, is it not the tear? and what is the blood of joy? When we are full of joy do we not weep? Ah! that we do. The same drop which expresses joy is sorrow's own emblem; we weep for joy, and we weep for sorrow. Our fires gives smoke, to tell us that our comforts have their trials with them. Christian men! you have extraordinary fires, which others have never kindled; expect then to have extraordinary smoke. You have the presence of Christ; but then you will have the smoke of fear, lest you should lose it. You have the promise of God's Word—there is the fire of it: but you have the smoke sometimes, when you read it without the illumination of God's Spirit. You have the joy of assurance; but you have also the smoke of doubt, which blows into your eyes, and well nigh blinds you. You have your trials, and your trials arise from your comforts. The more comfort you have, the more fire you have, the more sorrows shall you have, and the more smoke.

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And yet more: trials which are not felt are unprofitable trials. If there be no blueness in the wound, then the soul is not made better; if there be no crying out, then there will be no emptying out of our depravity. It is just so much as we feel, that we are profited; but a trial unfelt must be a trial unsanctified, a trial under which we do not feel at all, cannot be a blessing to us, because we are only blessed by feeling it, under the agency of God's Holy Spirit. Christian man! do not blush, because you are like a bottle in the smoke: because you are sensitive under affliction, for so you ought to be.

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It is marvellous how bright we are when everything goes right with us; but it is equally marvellous how black we get when a little tribulation comes upon us. We think very well of ourselves while there is no smoke; but let the smoke come, and it just reveals the blackness of our hearts. Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of; they just turn up some of the ill weeds on the surface; they are good, for this reason, they make us know our blackness.

— ‘A Bottle in the Smoke‘ - The New Park Street Pulpit Vol II pg. 139-141 (C.H. Spurgeon)

O, beloved.

Isn’t it so very true - how any/all comforts we experience here, in this life, are bittersweet?

There is a sweetness to them, no doubt; and this, it seems, is part of His graciousness in allowing us to taste His goodness. But there is also, most definitely, a bitterness too - for each comfort is only a taste, at best.

And, oh! How both the joy and the sorrow, the fire and the smoke well up tears in our eyes, beloved. The beauty and the pain…they seem to go hand-in-hand here. Perhaps some Day, they will be sanctified – we hope. In the meantime – So. Many. Tears. We must trust they are all for His glory and our good, somehow.

It’s good that we feel them, yes? Aye. For otherwise they’d be useless. Therefore – feel them – we shall.

Beloved? When the ache, the bitterness, the pain is overbearing…please don’t lose hope. It’s okay to weep, to lament, to cry out to God in desperation. He knows. He cares. He is compassionate.

I’m still not quite sure what to do with the ache….although I know it should draw us closer to Him. Maybe that’s all it’s intended to do? (pondering) I know so very little, but He knows - that’s all that matters.

Let us be thankful, beloved, for both the fire and the smoke. We are loved.