Spurgeon on trials and afflictions. My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as a son. God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. God's fixed purpose is not the destruction, but the instruction of his people. Divine wisdom hangs up the thermometer at the furnace mouth and carefully regulates the heat. Our lusts are cords. Fiery trials are sent to burn and consume them.

None of us can come to the highest maturity without enduring the summer heat of trials. I would not wish for any man a long time of sickness and pain. But a twist now and then, one might almost ask for him. A sick wife, a newly made grave, poverty, slander, sinking of spirit, might teach lessons nowhere else to be learned so well. Trials drive us to the realities of religion. Paul, who had more to suffer than we have, called his afflictions light, and yet we often consider ours to be heavy. Surely something must be amiss with the weights.

We never have yet experienced a trouble which might not have been worse, Anything outside of hell is a mercy. Perhaps we are tried just now in order to drive us nearer to Jesus. Blessed be any wind that blows us into the port of our Savior's love. Troubled one, you may go to your precious Redeemer about anything, about everything. Our place of comfort is the bosom of our Savior. If God sent us trials such as we would wish for, then they would not be trials at all.

Any cross but the one I have, cried one. Surely it would not be a cross if you had the choosing of it, for it is the essence of a cross that it should run counter to our likings. The best remedy for affliction is submitting to God's all-wise providence. What can't be cured must be endured. Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. Mighty prayer has often been produced by mighty trial. 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.