Trials Working for Good
By F. M. Bragg
"All Things Work Together for Good to Them that Love God." Rom. viii, 28. If we believed the truth couched in these words, what serenity would possess the mind under trials. When the Son of righteousness seems, for a time, hid behind the cloud of adversity, if we fully believed and felt the force of the truth here expressed, that whatever betide, whether distressed with poverty, or weakened by sickness and disease, or pressed by foes, to us the darkness would be but the precursor of the dawn of that brighter day, when the Son of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings. The apostle says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Shall we murmur at trials with such a hope, and that too, soon to be realized? Trials by their very nature, are calculated to purify us; therefore they can work for us the greatest possible good. And God has assured us that they are the great means by which he purifies unto himself a peculiar people, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Then let us not frustrate the good work God has begun in us, but rather welcome suffering, if we may be fitted to reign with the King of glory, where there will be no more sin, nor pain, nor sickness and death; for there will be nothing to hurt in all God's holy mountain. The Lord tells us that whom he loveth he chasteneth. If we have chastening from the Lord we have the surety that we are loved by him. Blessed assurance! We have every reason to rejoice that this God is our God. Rejoice in God.
F. M. BRAGG.
Cambridge, Wis.