July 25

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes. - Psalms 119:71.

HERE we see what will be the disposition of mind under sanctified affliction. And it is very desirable for us to know, if we are in trouble, whether we are of the number of those of whom it is said, “Happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth,” or if we are able to say with David, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” Then when the affliction is sanctified, man is the scholar and God is the teacher, and though the man may be restive at first, yet under his influence he will be brought to the state of mind in which God heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus:-“Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned I repented, and after that I was instructed I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.” And so will it be with every man when God is thus dealing with him, and sanctifying his afflictions. “He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him; he putteth his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope.”

We see also how we may improve our afflictions, and how to render them not only harmless, but even beneficial. And this will be when, like David, we are turned towards him, and ask, “Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?” and “though no affliction for the present is joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby.” The ploughman is not angry with the ground, but he drives the ploughshare through it to prepare it for the reception of the seed; the gardener is not angry with the vine, but he cuts it and prunes it, in order that it “may bring forth more fruit.” As constantly as the ox is in the field of labour he must have the yoke on; and Jeremiah compares affliction to a yoke, and says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”

Let but the Lord impose it upon us, and it will sit easy and wear well; and we shall not be anxious to put it off till we put off the body. And thus we are comforted concerning the care of our hearts and of our hands; thus while we learn that godliness does not exempt its votaries from afflictions, it supports them under them, and turns them into blessings. And let us remember that we need every one of them-

“They all are moat needful,

Not one is in vain.”

And while they teach us “what an evil thing and bitter it is to sin against God,” they are often the “fruits to take away sin.”