It is in these storms -philpot

~~[b]~~It is in these storms[/b]

(Philpot, "Christ Jesus the Lord Received and Walked In")

The very storms through which the believer passes,
will only strengthen him to take a firmer hold of Christ.
As the same wind that blows down the poplar tree, only
establishes the oak tree; so the very storms which
uproot the shallow professor, only root the child of
God more firmly in Christ.

Though these storms may shake off some of his
leaves, or break off some of the rotten boughs, they
do not uproot his faith--but rather strengthen it.

It is in these storms that he learns . . .
more of his own weakness, and of Christ's strength;
more of his own misery, and of Christ's mercy;
more of his own sinfulness, and of superabounding grace;
more of his own poverty, and of Christ's riches;
more of his own desert of hell, and of his own title to heaven.

It is in these storms that the same blessed Spirit who
began the work carries it on; and goes on to engrave
the image of Christ in deeper characters upon his heart;
and to teach him more and more experimentally--the
truth as it is in Jesus.

This reminds me of a poem I read once.

"Good Timber"

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
That stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To heaven from the common soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man,
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow in ease;
The stronger wind, the tougher trees;
The farther sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength;
By sun and cold, by rain and snows,
In tree or man, good timber grows.
Where thickest stands the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of them both;
And they hold converse with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and of much strife –
This is the common law of life.

- Douglas Malloch