HOW GOD BRINGS ABOUT HIS PURPOSE IN AFFLICTION
[T]he whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries” John Calvin (ref#113, p465)
“He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity” (Job 36:15 ESV).
“[O]ur suffering is never purposeless, blind, unfair, or random. [I]n the midst of adversity he is working out his gracious plans for us (2 Cor 4:17-18). [T]he Savior is the only innocent one to ever suffer” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p132).
“When difficulty exposes the weakness of your resolve and the limits of your strength, you do not have to panic, because he will endure even in those moments when you don’t feel able to do so yourself” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 12th).
“[God’s children] were kept walking humbly with [Him], and this was the secret of their safety. God can bring His servant from the loftiest height to the lowest depth of adversity, yet love him still with an unchanged and deathless affection” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Nov 14th).
“In your distress you called and [God] rescued you, [He] answered you” (Ps 81:7 NIV).
If I don’t buffet my body GOD will do it for me through His discipline.
“Bright is the oasis that blooms in the wilderness of sand. When the Israelites provoked the Most High by their continued idolatry, He punished them by withholding both dew and rain, so that their land was visited by a sore famine. But while He did this, He took care that His own chosen ones would be secure. If all other brooks are dry, yet will there be one reserved for Elijah; and when that fails, God will still preserve for him a place of sustenance; No, not only for one, because the Lord did not have simply one ‘Elijah,’ but He had a remnant according to the election of grace, who were hidden by fifties in a cave; and though the whole land was subject to famine, yet these fifties in the cave were fed, and fed from Ahab’s table, too, by His faithful, God-fearing steward, Obadiah. Let us from this draw the inference: come what may, God’s people are safe” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, July 6th AM).
“Great tempest, great calm; God proportions the comfort to the affliction” Pasquier Quesnel (ref#333, p225).
Bonnie's Prayer Affair 