And so with faithful Ruth we pray That bitter providence today Tomorrow will taste very sweet, And every famine that we meet And every broken staff of bread In death, will bring us life instead.

In other words, when all the supports of human life and earthly happiness are taken away, God will be our delight, our joy. This experience is humanly impossible. No ordinary person can speak in truth like this. If God alone is enough to support joy when all else is lost, it is a miracle of grace.

If you cannot embrace the pain of learning but must have instant gratification, you forfeit the greatest rewards of life.

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life, or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience him in our losses.

His beauty shines most brightly when treasured above health and wealth and life itself. Jesus knew this. He knew that suffering (whether small discomforts or dreadful torture) would be the path in this age for making him most visibly supreme.

Satan . . . afflicted Job with loathsome sores," Job's response was, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?

H]ealing displays the works of God in John 9, and sustaining grace displays the works of God in 2 Corinthians 12. What is common in the two cases is the supreme value of the glory of God. The blindness is for the glory of God. The thorn in the flesh is for the glory of God. The healing is for his glory, and the non-healing is for his glory. Suffering can only have ultimate meaning in relation to God.

A thousand sorrows prepares a man to preach.

God has his ways to loosen your roots.

Make this the year you stop complaining about your weaknesses, and instead search for their God-given purpose.

God knows the time for joy and truly Will send it when he sees it meet When He has tried and purged thee duly And found thee free from all deceit. He comes to thee all unaware And makes thee own His loving care.3

The hope of heaven brought him joy, and joy brought him strength, and so, like John Calvin before him and George Whitefield after him (two verifiable examples) and, it would seem, like the apostle Paul himself Ãƒ¢Ã¢'¬Ã‚¦ he was astoundingly enabled to labor on, accomplishing more than would ever have seemed possible in a single lifetime."4 But