"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.McC
It is very easy for us to speak and theorize about faith, but God often casts us into crucibles to try our gold, and to separate it from the dross and alloy. Oh, happy are we if the hurricanes that ripple life's unquiet sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious. Better the storm with Christ than smooth waters without Him.—Macduff
What if God could not manage to ripen your life without suffering?
八月二十八日
「耶和华……在那里试验他们。」（出十五25）
有一天，我到一家大规模的钢厂试验室去参观。在我四围都是一间一间分开的小房间。钢受试验到一个限度，就用数码标着优劣的等级。有的一绞就断，有的可以拉得很长，有的可以压得很紧；它们的扭力，紧张力，和压力大小，都有数码标明在上面。厂主知道这一块钢受得住多少压力。他知道一块钢如果用来造大船、造屋宇，或者造桥梁，能够承担多少重力。他知道，因为他的试验室这样告诉他。
神的孩子也常如此受试验。神不要我们像玻璃或者瓷器的花瓶一样脆弱。祂要我们像坚韧的钢一般，无论怎样受绞受压，都不会破碎。
祂不要我们作花棚里面的花草，祂要我们作能被风雨击打的橡树；祂不要我们作会被疾风吹散的沙丘，祂要我们作抵抗狂风的花岗岩。要将我们做得这样，祂必须带我们到祂受苦的试验室去。我们中间有许多人都有自己的经验可以证明：受苦实在是神信心的试验室。－－马克康该
对别人讲说信心是很容易的事；但是，神常常将我们丢入坩埚里去提炼我们，要把贵金与劣金分别出来。哦！如果顚簸我们生活的飓风，能使我们的主更加宝贵的话，我们的顚簸也是舒适的了。有基督同在的风雨，比无基督同在的平静更好！－－马克特夫
若不受苦，神不能设法叫你的生命成熟。