Affliction Prepared for and Improved
By Thomas Sherman It was good for me to be afflicted, so that
I might learn your decrees. Psalm 119, 71 as it is the duty of God's children
to prepare for affliction before it comes, so it is also their
duty to improve affliction when it does come. If we do not prepare
for affliction, we shall be surprised by it, and if we do not improve
it, we are likely to increase it. He who would prepare for
affliction must beforehand resign all to God, strengthen his graces,
store up divine promises, and search out secret sins. And he
who would improve affliction when it does come, must labour
to see sin more and more in its filthiness, so as to mortify
it, his heart in its deceitfulness, so as to watch over it, the world
in its emptiness, so as to be crucified to it, grace in its
amiableness, so as to prize it, God in his holiness, so as to
revere him, and heaven in its desirableness, so as to long
after it. He who takes more care to avoid
afflictions than to be fitted for them, or is more solicitous
to be delivered from them than to be bettered by them, is likely
to come soonest into them, and to live longest under them. God
disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later
on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for
those who have been trained by it. Hebrews 12, 10 and 11.