Streams in the desert 荒漠甘泉 10.30

"Let us run with patience" (Heb. 12:1)

让我们边忍耐边奔跑。

O run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.

边忍耐边奔跑是非常困难的。奔跑，在常人看来，就是缺乏耐心、急于求成的表现。我们通常觉得，所谓耐心，就是躺下来什么都不做。我们以为它是守护弱者病榻的天使。然而，我并不认为弱者的忍耐是最难做到的。

There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!

有一种耐心，我认为更难做到，即一边奔跑一边忍耐。在悲伤的时候躺下来，在遭遇不幸的时候保持平静，这的确是一种力量；但我知道还有一种更强大的力量：背负不幸仍坚持工作、心有重负仍坚持奔跑，痛不堪言仍要完成义务。这是与基督一样的精神！

Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service━in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience.”

如果可以，我们中的许多人都能默默忍受悲哀。然而对于大多数人来说，更难的一点，不是在床上忍耐，而是在街上。我们需要将悲伤埋葬在积极的工作中，而不是懒洋洋的休眠里。我们要与人交流、好好工作、参与社交，关心他人的快乐。最难的是以这种方式去掩埋悲伤，这就是“一边忍耐一边奔跑”。

This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running—a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow—a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard. ━George Matheson

这是你的耐心，人类之子。你要一边等待一边奔跑 — —等待目标的实现，同时做着琐碎的日常工作。我看到你在迦拿小城酿水为酒，以防婚宴不能正常进行。我看到你在沙漠里分发食物给众人，让他们不再挨饿。做这些事情的时候，你都独自默默承受着巨大的悲伤，不与人分享。我，在我的乌云里，将化身一道彩虹——成为给予他人快乐的牧师。唯有能使我继续在葡萄园中劳作的耐心，才是真正的耐心。

“When all our hopes are gone,

'Tis well our hands must keep toiling on

For others ' sake:

For strength to bear is found in duty done;

And he is best indeed who learns to make

The joy of others cure his own heartache. ”

“当我们失去了希望，

我们的双手仍要辛勤劳动，

为了他人。

完成职责才能证明忍耐的力量；

唯有学会以他人的快乐度自己的心痛，

才是至善至美之人。”