SUFFERING-THANKFULNESS
For if [a
Christian] cannot thank and praise God as well in calamities and sufferings as
in prosperity and happiness, he is as far from the piety of a Christian as he
that only loves them that love him is from the charity of a Christian. For to
thank God only for such things as you like is no more a proper act of piety
than to believe only what you see is an act of faith. Resignation and thanksgiving to God are only
acts of piety when they are acts of faith, trust and confidence in the divine
goodness.
William Law
An evidence
that our will has been broken is that we begin to thank God for that which once
seemed so bitter, knowing that His will is good and that, in His time and in
His way, He is able to make the most bitter waters sweet.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A Place of Quiet Rest, Moody, 2000, p. 70.
The same
suffering that reveals our weaknesses reveals God’s strength, “for power is
perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). When we are least effective in our human strength
and have only God’s power to sustain us, then we are suitable channels through
which His power flows. And so we should praise God for adversity because that’s
when His power is most evident in our lives. There is no one too weak to be
powerful, but there are many too strong.
John MacArthur
Sufficient
Grace from Our Sufficiency in Christ, 1991, Crossway Books, a division of Good
News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org.
p. 250.
If anyone thinks that on account of our trials of faith
during this year we have been disappointed in our expectations or discouraged
in the work, my answer is that the very opposite is true. Such days were
expected from the beginning. The chief end for which the institution was
established is that the Church would see the hand of God stretched out on our
behalf in answer to prayer. Our desire, therefore, is not that we may be
without trials of faith, but that the Lord would graciously support us in the
trial and that we may not dishonor Him by distrust.
George
Muller
The Autobiography of George Muller, 1984, p. 130.
All quotations taken from books published by Whitaker House are used with
permission of the publisher. Whitaker House books are available at Christian
bookstores everywhere.