| There is for the child of God “the present,” and often it is not “joyous, but grievous,” as we pass “through manifold temptations” and “the fiery trial which is to try you.” “The travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it” carries with it a weight of sorrow and weariness, and for the time we forget that “all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.” But our loving Father does not work in our lives simply for present benefit and ease. He looks to the “afterward,” both in this life and in eternity. As we allow ourselves to be “exercised” by all the circumstances of life, our trials yield to us “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Thus God leads us “that He might humble thee, and that He might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end,” and “that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” |
