Job 7:21

REFLECTIONS

LET me call upon my own heart, while I call upon the Reader's also, to make the necessary improvements from what this chapter of Job's sufferings affords, as it may suit our own circumstances and situations in life. No man hath any cause to wonder at afflictions. Our life, as Job saith, at the best is but wind. A life, therefore, so much like the vapour, must be marked with vanity. And if the LORD marks this life with trial, it is because some blessed end, some gracious design is to be the result of it. And if we could but see the kind and gracious hand of JESUS in all, what a blessing would be in it. Here lies all the difference between the sufferings of one man and another. All men, more or less, are born to trial. For he that follows the world, as well as he that follows JESUS, must take up a cross: but while the one hath that cross lightened by JESUS, the other finds his the heavier for want of JESUS. My Brother! are these lines under the eye of a troubled soul? Do you feel sorrow? Do you see the hand of JESUS in that trouble? Are you prayerful under it? Are you humbled with it? Is it sanctified? Doth it lead you to the LORD, and not from the LORD? Put these questions close: see to it that the answers are what they should be. And mark this down as a circumstance never to be questioned or disputed; the trouble that leads the heart to GOD, never did, nor ever will, do any harm. And, on the contrary, the affliction that doth not accomplish this end, never did, nor ever will, do any good, Precious JESUS! make all my trials to bring about this grand and important purpose. Choose thou for me, O my GOD; send what thou knowest to be most suited to thy glory, and my everlasting good. LORD! let not my way-ward fancy direct, but thy wisdom. Let the affliction be what thou seest proper. In what measure, to what extent, how long, and how lasting; sure I am, all will turn to my good, if JESUS be in it. Lead me, LORD, when my heart is at anytime overwhelmed, to the Rock that is higher than I; and then, though in the world I may and shall have tribulation, yet in thee I shall have peace.