July 24

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. - 2 Corinthians 4:17.

HOW important it is that we should be able to derive this confidence with regard to the end and issue of our afflictions. From these none are exempted. “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” If there be no outward trouble, there is the hearts bitterness, which is known only to the sufferer. If the “thorn in the flesh” be so deeply inserted as not to be seen, it may be on that very account the more painful. A pious female who had been much indulged by the providence of God, once said to the writer, “You see my sails, but you do not see my ballast;” and there is always something as “ballast” connected with the successes and indulgences of Christians.

While the cup of affliction is going round from family to family, and individual to individual-while one is saying, I am “made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me”-and while another is saying, “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness”-these afflictions may be very useful, they may “work for us” the most blessed results; they may subserve the very purpose of our salvation, and they are much more likely to do this than mere successes. The Christian character is more formed from trials than from indulgences; for “Happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth.”

Many can bear testimony to this, and how many can say, “It is good for me to have been afflicted!” They have found in “the valley of Achor the door of hope.” The first meeting with God was on the bed of affliction or in the chamber of sickness. “Oh,” says one, “if it had not been for these trials and bodily infirmities I might have gone astray: I might have lived according to the course of this world, and perished at last along with it.” If the vine had reason, it would be thankful for the sharpest cuttings of the gardener’s knife; or if the fallow ground had reason, it would be thankful for the ploughshare which tears it up, and prepares it by this process for the reception of the seed. If we are in trouble, it is blessed to know how light and momentary will be every trial, and that “all things are working out for us a far more exceeding and an eternal weight of glory.”

Oh! what will all outward losses be if we can only add, “I have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”