Manna in the Morning

One of the enemies of faith is undo criticism. From time to time we are all victims of the harshness of another’s attack. We should remember that God’s opinion is in the final analysis the only one that really matters. We should also remember that when we are criticized we are in fairly good company. It’s been reported that when the famous preacher Henry Ward Beecher preached in Brooklyn, New York, he carried a handful of flowers into the pulpit and placed them in a vase on the stand from which he spoke. The next day, the local newspaper carried lengthy articles condemning Beecher for desecrating the pulpit with flowers. When Samuel Morse was trying to get money from Congress for a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, he had to endure criticism from the press for 11 years. When Cyrus Field was trying to lay the first transatlantic cable, the newspapers denounced him as “a mad freak of stubborn ignorance.” Jesus also endured criticism from the religious sector of His day when He healed the sick on the Sabbath or when He rightly claimed to be the Son of God. So you see, we are in great company.