Daily Prayer - Sick Saints

Good Thursday morning, my friends.

 

Are you questioning the amount or type of suffering in your life?  Are you wondering "God - where are you in all this?"  My wonderful wife, Rosemary, sent me this quote this morning because she knows that I am struggling with this question.  Maybe you, as I, needed to hear this today.

 

Under your cross you have many special comforts. There are cordials which God gives to sick saints which he never puts to the lips of those who are in health. Dark caverns keep not back the miners, if they know that diamonds are to be found there: you need not fear suffering when you remember what riches it yields to your soul. There is no hearing the nightingale without night, and there are some promises which only sing to us in trouble. It is in the cellar of affliction that the good old wine of the kingdom is stored. You shall never see Christ’s face so well as when all others turn their backs upon you. When you have come into such confusion that human wisdom is at a nonplus, then shall you see God’s wisdom manifest and clear. Oh! the love-visits which Christ pays to his people when they are in the prison of their trouble! Then he lays bare his very heart to them, and comforts them as a mother does her child. They sleep daintily who have Jesus to make their beds. Suffering saints are generally the most flourishing saints, and well they may be, for they are Jesus’ special care. If you would find a man whose lips drop with pearls, look for one who has been in the deep waters. We seldom learn much except as it is beaten into us by the rod in Christ’s school-house under Madam Trouble. God’s vines owe more to the pruning knife than to any other tool in the garden; superfluous shoots are sad spoilers of the vines. But even while we carry it, the cross brings present comfort; it is a dear, dear cross, all hung with roses and dripping with sweet smelling myrrh.

 

Charles Spurgeon

3 April 1864

 

Doesn't the line "We seldom learn much except as it is beaten into us by the rod in Christ’s school-house under Madam Trouble" paint quite a picture?

 

 

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Bruce

 

 

Lord God, you have provided,

you are providing,

and you will provide:

I believe,

help my unbelief!

 

From unexpected places,

in unmistakeable ways,

with gracious generosity

and gratifying regularity

you have provided for the needs

of me and my family,

and graciously kept our stores

of oil and flour

from running out.

 

I thank you, Sovereign Lord,

with my whole heart,

and ask you to please

continue.

 

Amen.

 

(http://bobhostetler.blogspot.ca/2014/03/a-prayer-from-zarephath.html)