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
ONLY be still, and wait His leisure
In cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate'er thy Father's pleasure,
And all-discerning love hath sent;
Nor doubt our inmost wants are known
To Him who chose us for His own.
GEORG NEUMARK, 1657
OH, how is the face of life altered, as soon as a man has in earnest made his first object to do his Father's will! Oh, how do, what before seemed grievous burdens, bodily sickness, domestic trial, privations, losses, bereavement, the world's scorn, man's unthankfulness, or whatever grief his Father may put upon him, how do these things change! To those, whose hope is in heaven, everything becomes a means of discipline, an instrument of strengthening their cheerful acceptance of their Father's will. Their irksome tasks, privations, sickness, heaviness of heart, unkindness of others, and all the sorrows which their Father allots them in this world, are so many means of conforming them to their Saviour's image. Then doth everything which God doeth with them seem to them "very good," even because He doth it.
EDWARD B. PUSEY
This is a public domain version of Joy and Strength.