‘The LORD examines the righteous’ (Psalm 11:5)

Where the Lord gives grace, He always tests it; therefore His own people must expect to pass through the fire. He will try our faith to find out what sort it is; our love, to see what strength it is. He will also try our patience and our constancy. Therefore, let’s not be surprised at trials, and let’s not be discouraged by them.

For our Heavenly Father tests us out of pure love, with the best design, according to a wise rule and at the most appropriate season. He considers our frame, our circumstances and our foes. He does nothing rashly or unkindly. He would not put us through pain if we did not need it. Trials are preservatives or restoratives; they keep us back from evil, or are intended to bring us out of evil into which we have fallen.

Your trials, then, are from the Lord; His wisdom selected, His love appointed, and His providence brings them about. If you ask, “Why Lord? Why am I being tried like this?”, the answer is, “To humble you, and to prove you, and to do you good.”

Receive every trial as from God, and go to Him for strength to bear it, grace to sanctify it, and deliverance from it; and so all will be well. It is not for His pleasure, but for your profit, that you are being tried.

 The clouds of deepest woe,
A sweet love-message bear;
Dark though they seem, we cannot find
A frown of anger there.

THE DAILY REMEMBRANCER by James Smith (1802-1862)

Journal Jottings

‘Lord, prevent me from looking at men, but as instruments in Thy hands, to effect Thy purposes and accomplish Thy will. May I daily see everything in God, and God in everything. May I view everything in the hands of Jesus, as Mediator. What a proof of the loving-kindness of Jesus to my soul is this, that he will not allow me to be easy or happy, while living at a distance from Him. It is my backslidings that correct me, though appearing in the shape of men.

“O bring me to Thy sacred feet,
And let me rove no more.”‘