There are so many in our fellowship who are sick right now and we should pray for their healing. Richard Sibbes said “The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.” and this is true. The Apostle Peter also declared
“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, (7) that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, (8) whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, (9) receiving the end of your faith–the salvation of your souls. 1Pet 1:6-9”
It would seem that our present suffering is purposeful and that we should not so eagerly desire our struggles to be over without discovering their purpose. Abraham Wright said “I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness…. Thus was it with…. Manasseh, when he was in affliction, “He besought the Lord his God”: even that king’s iron was more precious to him than his gold, his jail a more happy lodging than his palace, Babylon a better school than Jerusalem. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit.”
I love that …. “not for our pleasure but for our profit”. Certainly the profit is that our hearts may cleave to Him more closely.
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