Affliction brings out graces that cannot be seen in a time of health. It is the treading of the grapes that brings out the sweet juices of the vine; so it is affliction that draws forth submission, weanedness from the world, and complete rest in God. Use afflictions while you have them.
Affliction shows the power of Christ's blood, when it gives peace in an hour of trouble, when it can make happy in sickness, poverty, persecution and death. Do not be surprised if you suffer, but glorify God.
Your afflictions may only prove that you are more immediately under the Father's hand. There is no time that the patient is such an object of tender interest to the Surgeon, as when he is under the "knife". So you may be sure if you are suffering from the hand of God, that His eye is all the more on you.
When old companions, old lusts, and sins crowd in upon you, and when you feel that you are ready to sink, what can save you, sinking sinner? This alone: I have a high Priest in heaven, and He can support in the hour of affliction. This alone can give you peace - I have a high Priest in heaven. When friends can do you no good, when sins rise up like spectres around you, what can give you peace? This: "I have a high Priest in heaven."
Learn that urgency in prayer does not so much consist in vehement pleading, as in vehement believing. He that believes most the love and power of Jesus will obtain the most in prayer.
If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He "is" praying for me. Amen
~Robert Murray McCheyne~
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