December: Trials and Pain
The devil, things and people being what they are, it is necessary for
God to use the hammer, the file and the furnace in His holy work of
preparing a saint for true sainthood. It is doubtful whether God can
bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.
The Root of the Righteous, 157.
December 24
Trials and Pain: We Forget
And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not
receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that
they should not be made perfect apart from us.
--Hebrews 11:39-40
Then there is the matter of constant consolation and peace--the promise
of always feeling relaxed and at rest and enjoying ourselves inwardly.
This, I say, has been held up as being quite the proper goal to be
sought in the evil hour in which we live. We forget that our Lord was a
man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. We forget the arrows of grief
and pain which went through the heart of Jesus' mother, Mary. We forget
that all of the apostles except John died a martyr's death. We forget
that there were 13 million Christians slain during the first two
generations of the Christian era. We forget that they languished in
prison, that they were starved, were thrown over cliffs, were fed to
the lions, were drowned, that they were sewn in sacks and thrown into
the ocean....
There was much distress, many heartaches, painful bruises, flowing
tears, much loss and many deaths.
But there is something better than being comfortable, and the followers
of Christ ought to find it out-the poor, soft, overstuffed Christians
of our time ought to find it out! There is something better than being
comfortable!
We Protestants have forgotten altogether that there is such a thing as
discipline and suffering.
Who Put Jesus on the Cross? pp. 17-19
"Forgive me for complaining, Lord, about the few trials I've
experienced. I've suffered nothing like the former saints-yet I so
easily forget that and chafe at the discipline and suffering. Forgive
me. Amen."