Trials Unwelcome But Beneficial

'What mercy it is to know that all is in safe hands; that sickness and health, comfort or affliction, lie or death, are all equally in the inventory of a believer's privileges, - all equally blessings, though some in one view are more apparently so, and some are sent more under a disguise to do us good; so that perhaps we are afraid of them, and would willingly, if we could, prevent them from coming; but they are the Lord's messengers, they have a gracious errand to deliver, and therefore they must have admittance; and though at first we do not like their looks or their language, yet afterwards, when we have received the benefits, the peaceable fruits of righteousness they are commissioned to bestow, we are not sorry they were sent, or that we were not able to shut them out.

The hour is coming when we shall be astonished to think what mere trifles were once capable of discouraging us; for though many things we now meet with have a kind of importance respecting the present life and our natural feelings, yet when we come to see things as they are, and get a clearer view of the difference between temporary and eternal, - of the lightness of the one and the weight of the other, - we shall be satisfied there is a greater disproportion between them than between molehills and mountains; and that when the Lord has put us in possession of the pearl of great price, the gain or loss of a pebble was hardly worth a serious thought.

It appears so to us in some measure now, when we are first seeking the Lord's peace. How common is it, the, to think - Oh! if my sins were but pardoned, and I had reason to hope that I was one of his children other things would not greatly move me. There are times, too, afterwards, when for a season we form the like judgment, as when we are favored with a golden hour of the light of his countenance, how little does the world and its concerns appear! So, likewise, if we stand by the bed of a dying believer, just ripe for glory, upon the point of entering, we see then how light such a one makes both of the trials he has passed through, and of the world he is about to leave; we feel something of the same spirit, and could wish, if it were the Lord's pleasure, to go along with him'.



- John Newton

[Linked Image]

simul iustus et peccator

[Linked Image]