It is still true. "As many as 1 love I rebuke and chasten." You may be quite sure you needed all you have passed through, for He loved you too well to let you suffer more than needful, or less than was for your good. When we reach home we shall look back and see how perfectly wisdom and love worked together in allowing all that happened to us on the way. But it is well for us not to leave the unraveling of the "why" and "wherefore" till "that day," for it is meant for our present profit. I believe we may save ourselves from many a sore trial by more readiness to learn the lesson and yield to the discipline.
There are two things that help us to discern what our Father is doing. One thing is the knowledge of ourselves; for instance, if I am of a grasping, covetous disposition, I may for a long time be deceiving myself by thinking it is prudence and thrift, and so never discover that He who loves me and knows me so well is seeking to bring me to judge this covetous disposition. But as soon as I have my eyes open to the truth about myself, I see what my Father is about with me. The other thing is a knowledge of Christ, and that all God's ways with us are forwarding the one end, to conform us to Christ, and we may be sure that all in us contrary to Christ or unlike Him will not be allowed to pass; there will be patience and long-suffering, but no indifference on these points. So, the more we learn of Christ, the wiser we shall be as to God's dealings with us.
Then there is another thing we might mention: the thorough surrender of our wills. We are slower to do this than we think we are. We are given to all kinds of shifts and schemes to have our own way without seeming to go against God's will. We deceive ourselves in this but we cannot deceive Him. So He is ever teaching us that His will alone is the "good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." G. G.