Many of
them, and sometimes very threatening ones, disappear entirely before we
reach them; and the others, when they do come, are usually not nearly so
bad as we had thought they were going to be. We always find a way through
them. Many times we are surprized at the ease with which we overcome them.
One brother who had been troubled all his life was finally enabled to see
that the Lord always made a way through for him, and in speaking of it he
said, "Things nearly always turn out better than I think they are going
to."

A young brother and I once had an experience that well illustrates how
trouble works. We were going to meeting one night. There was such a heavy
fog, that we could see only a few feet ahead of us. Suddenly there loomed
before us what appeared to be a great giant. He came striding toward us
through the fog with legs twenty feet long and body towering up out of
sight. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle and at first sight startled us.
There it was, coming right toward us in a most threatening manner. If we
had been frightened and had run away, we might have had a great story to
tell; but we continued walking on toward it, when suddenly we came face to
face with one of our neighbors. He was only an ordinary-sized man, and
there was nothing terrible about him; but he was carrying a lantern, which
swung partly behind him, and as he walked threw that gigantic shadow
forward into the fog. The giant that we saw was not the real man; it was
only his shadow.

That is just the way trouble comes. The thing we see is not really the
approaching trouble in its true size and shape; it is only the shadow of
it that we see. Our imagination pictures it as something terrible, and we
worry and live in its shadow for days and weeks, only to find at last that
we have been scared by a shadow and that the real trouble is only a
fraction of what we supposed it would be.

When Alexander the Great was a youth, his father had a war-horse that no
one could ride. The youthful prince made up his mind to conquer the
animal. When he tried it, he discovered that the horse was afraid of its
shadow; so he turned its head toward the sun and soon had it conquered.
Let us learn a lesson from this, and when we become afraid of the shadows
of trouble, let us turn our faces toward the Sun of Righteousness, thus
leaving the shadows behind us. The Scripture says: "The Lord also will be
a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. An