God's chisel!

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(Charles Naylor)

"Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows." John 16:33

"Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." Job 5:7

Suffering is the common lot of all mankind, and of the animal creation. People who do not have much else from which to suffer--suffer from trifles or from imaginary ills--but all suffer. Sinners and saints alike, know the rankling of the sharp arrows of pain. Even those whose lives seem most prosperous and sheltered, cannot fully escape.

Suffering has a useful place in the economy of God. It is a severe schoolmaster, but a good one, whose lessons may be costly. But if they are properly learned, they become golden treasures that enrich life.

Suffering is God's chisel with which He carves His image in the heart!

Suffering gives understanding--it illuminates life's dark places and solves riddles.

Suffering develops patience and endurance, and strengthens the fibers of the soul.

Suffering develops discipline and gives self-control. It reveals and develops latent virtues. It ripens and enriches the character.

To be sure, such results follow only when we meet our sufferings in the right way. If resist suffering and become resentful and pity ourselves or murmur against God--the fruits will be bitter indeed!

Since we choose the attitude we hold toward our sufferings--we determine whether they shall . . .

  make us, or mar us;

  bring joy, or sorrow;

  bring the sweetness of Christ's fellowship and comfort, or the darkness of despair.

What God does with our adversities and our sufferings, is to transmute them into the gold of godly character. They prove to be blessings in disguise--but blessings nevertheless. Again and again in the Scriptures, we are told of the blessings that come through suffering and pain, disappointments and testings. Yes, sufferings, losses, adversities--all these things we so desire to shun--work "for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"--if we patiently endure them and submit to God's sovereign and loving will.

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