Affliction is God’s shepherd dog to drive us back to the fold. –Anonymous
God sweetens outward pain with inward peace. –Thomas Watson
When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses. –Richard Sibbes
God measures out affliction to our need. –St. John Chrysostom, Homily IV
The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions prepare the soul for glory. –Richard Sibbes
Do not even such things as are most bitter to the flesh, tend to awaken Christians to faith and prayer, to a sight of the emptiness of this world, and to the fadingness of the best it yields? Doth not God by these things oftentimes call our sins to remembrance, and provoke us to amendment of life? How then can we be offended at things by which we reap so much good? –John Bunyan
As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst. —William Jenkyn
I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness… What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, no matter how unpleasant, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit. –Abraham Wright
Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride. –Richard Sibbes
Afflictions are light when compared with what we really deserve. They are light when compared with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. But perhaps their real lightness is best seen by comparing them with the weight of glory which is awaiting us. –Arthur W. Pink
The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. –Charles Spurgeon
****************************
Job 36:15-16a — But those who suffer He delivers in their suffering; He speaks to them in their affliction. He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction…
Psalm 119:67 — Before I was afflicted I went astray: But now I have kept thy word.
II Corinthians 4;17 — For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
Psalm 34:19 — Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
Psalm 113:13-14 — As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.
******************************
Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all disappointments and calamities in this life, in such a way that they may unite my heart more closely with you. Cause them to separate my affections from worldly things and inspire my soul with more vigor in the pursuit of true happiness. Amen.
–Susanna Wesley (1669-1742), mother of John and Charles Wesley and 17 other children
***********************************
Going deeper with C. S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain, pages 106-107:
My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book; when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first, I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God, and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus, the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over—I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed.
And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.
Related Posts
