This would greatly calm our minds
and take the sting out of 10,000 little irritations. By Charles
Simeon. If we learn to see the hand of
God in everything, it will bring peace into the Christian soul,
even in the midst of the heaviest trials. You will not find a greater
sufferer than Job anywhere. He lost all of his children,
his possessions, and his health. men, demons, elements, all conspired
against him. But in all his trials, he saw
the hand of his gracious God, and that composed his mind. Naked
I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord
be praised. Shall we accept good from God
and not trouble? In the same way, Joseph saw God's
hand in all the afflictions that befell him. It was not you who
sent me here, but God. You intended to harm me, but
God intended it for good. Let us reply to the revilings
of our malignant enemy. The Lord has bidden him to curse
me, and that will be an end of all the anguish that his hostility
has for a moment occasioned us. Let us then, in all our trials,
the smaller which occur in social or domestic life, as well as
in those afflictions of a more overwhelming nature, habituate
ourselves to see the Lord's hand and to say, he is the Lord, let
him do what is good in his eyes. This would greatly calm our minds
and take the sting out of 10,000 little irritations, which often
trouble us far more than heavier afflictions. If we may but be
purged from our sinful dross and come out of the furnace as
purified gold, it should be deemed an ample compensation for all
our troubles. It should make us thankfully
to acknowledge that God in love and faithfulness has afflicted
us. When times are good, be happy,
but when times are bad, consider, God has made the one as well
as the other. Ecclesiastes 7.14 My times are
in your hand. Psalm 31.15 Be still and know
that I am God. Psalm 46.10