From J. C. Philpot's Daily Portions
December 24 "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I
might learn your statutes." Psalm 119:71 We may have everything naturally that the carnal heart
desires, and only be hardened thereby into worldliness and ungodliness. But
to be brought down in body and soul, to be weaned and separated from an
ungodly world by affliction sanctified and made spiritually profitable--to
be brought to feel our need of Christ, and that without a saving interest in
his precious blood our soul must be forever lost--how much better it is
really and truly, to be laid on a bed of affliction, with a hope in God's
mercy, than to be left to our own carnality and thoughtlessness. Affliction of any kind is very hard to bear, and
especially so when we begin to murmur and fret under the weight of the
cross; but when the Lord afflicts it is in good earnest; he means to make us
feel. Strong measures are required to bring us down; and affliction would
not be affliction, unless it were full of grief and sorrow. But when
affliction makes us seek the Lord with a deep feeling in the soul that none
but himself can save or bless, and we are enabled to look up unto him, with
sincerity and earnestness, that he would manifest his love and mercy to our
heart, he will appear sooner or later. The Lord, who searches the heart, knows all the real
desire of the soul, and can and does listen to a sigh, a desire, a breath of
supplication within. He knows our state, both of body and soul, and is not a
hard taskmaster to require what we cannot give, or lay upon us more than we
can bear. But very often he delays to appear, that he may teach us thereby
we have no claim upon him, and that anything granted is of his pure
compassion and grace.