It has been well said that "earthly cares are a heavenly discipline." However, they are even something better than discipline they are God's chariots, sent to take the soul to its high places of triumph.
They do not look like chariots. Instead, they look like enemies, sufferings, trials, defeats, misunderstandings, disappointments, unkindnesses. They look like misery and wretchedness waiting to roll over us and crush us into the earth. But if could we see them as they really are, we would recognize them as chariots of triumph in which we may ride to those heights of victory for which our souls have been longing and praying. The difficulty is the visible thing. The chariot of God is the invisible. The King of Syria came up against Elisha with horses and chariots that could be seen by every eye, but God had chariots that could be seen by none except the eye of faith. The servant of the Prophet could only see the outward and visible. In 2 Kings 6:15 he cried, "Alas, my Master! how shall we do?'' But Elisha sat calmly within his house without fear, because his eyes were opened to see the invisible. All he asked for his servant was, "Lord, I pray Thee open his eyes that he may see" (2Kings6:17).
This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, "Lord, open our eyes that we may see." The world all around us, as well as around the Prophet, is full of God's horses and chariots waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are opened, we will see in all the events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a "chariot" for our souls.
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