Frustration, deprivation, and persecution were certainly the lot of the apostles. These men were made spectacles to men and angels of the suffering they would endure in order to make Christ known. These sufferings work out a divine purpose in the lives of God s servants. Our strength must come from a source of power other than human ability. God often allows the hearts of His servants to be broken so that they may minister to the brokenhearted.
Plastic flowers bring no fragrance, and plastic lives bring no relief to a broken world.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, One crushing stroke has sometimes laid the minister very low. The brother most relied upon becomes a traitor. It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand, that my trials were never measured out by Him nor sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity. God and even sometimes the devil breaks it. Because in a broken heart we find out we have to be carried.