Spurgeon

I read from ''Beside Still Waters'' by Spurgeon this morning and really loved this passage. Thought I'd share.

''The way to a stronger faith usually lies along the rough path of sorrow. ONLY AS FAITH IS CONTESTED WILL FAITH BE CONFIRMED. I do not know if my experience is similar to all of God's people, but all the grace I have received in comfortable and easy times could lie on a penny. The good that I have received from sorrow, grief, and pain is incalculable. What do I not owe to the hammer and the anvil, the fire and the file? What do I not owe to the crucible and the furnace,the bellows that flamed the coals and the hand that thrust me into the heat? Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister's library. We may wisely rejoice in various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces patience(James 1:2-3). And through this we are exceedingly enriched and our faith grows strong. An old puritan said that if you go into the woods and you are very quiet, you will know whether there is a partridge, or a pheasant, or a rabbit in it. But when you move or make a noise, you soon see the living creatures. They rise or they run. When affliction comes into your soul and makes a disturbance and breaks your peace, your graces rise. Faith comes out of hiding and leaps from it's secret place. I remember Mr. William Jay saying that bird's nests are hard to find in the summer, but that anyone can find a bird's nest in the winter. When all the leaves are off the tree the nest's are highly visible. Often in prosperity we fail to find our faith. Yet when adversity comes, the winter of our trial bares the branches, and we immediately see our faith.
"Before I was afflicted I went astray'', said David, ''but now I keep your word.'' He found his faith was really there by keeping God's word in the time of affliction.''