FAITH IN SUFFERING
“Discouragement focuses more on the broken glories of creation than it does on the restoring glories of God’s character, presence, and promises. [The Israelites heading for the promise land] had been promised a land of their own, but what they got was a place filled with people who didn’t want them there. What they saw as being in the way of God’s plan was actually part of his plan; what caused their faith to weaken was actually God’s tool to build their faith. He knows just how he will use what makes you afraid in order to build your faith. He is not surprised by the troubles you face, and he surely has no intention of leaving you to face those things on your own. He stands with you in power, glory, goodness, wisdom and grace. He can defeat what you can’t, and he intends these troubles to be not enemies that finish you but tools of grace that transform you” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, June 25th).
“[L]et those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator” (1 Pet 4:19 NASB).
“I did not know I was so unbelieving until the Lord tried my faith. I never imagined that I was so impatient, self-willed, and restless until God led me to wear the yoke and wait His will. I never supposed that my strength was so small until the Lord laid the burden on me. Little did I know how limited was my knowledge of Christ, how deficient was my acquaintance with divine truth, and how far my heart was from true prayer, until the affliction of my God set me examining my resources to meet it. Then I discovered how shallow was my experience, and how low and meager was my Christianity” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Feb 26th).
“[It] would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, not sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity. If you drink of the river of affliction near its outfall, it is brackish and offensive to the taste, but if you will trace it to its source, where it rises at the foot of the throne of God, you will find its waters to be sweet and health-giving” Charles Spurgeon (“The Anguish and Agonies of Charles Spurgeon” [Christian History, Issue 29], p25).
“[W]here there is faith in the Lord Jesus, there is love; and where there is love, there is obedience; and where there is obedience, there is happiness; and where there is happiness, the soul can rejoice even in tribulation and sit and sing sweetly and merrily in adversity. [A]ll things in your history are for your good, and this calamity, this affliction, this loss, is among those things” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Sept 21st).
“Rejoice in the LORD always; again I will say, rejoice. [B]y prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:4, 6 ESV).
Bonnie's Prayer Affair 