O what painful work it is!'

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"You also, like living stones, are being
built into a spiritual house." 1 Peter 2:5

God's people require . . .
many severe afflictions,
many harassing temptations,
and  many powerful trials 
to hew them into any good shape, to chisel 
them into any conformity to Christ's image.

For they are not like the passive marble under 
the hands of the sculptor, which will submit 
without murmuring, and indeed without feeling, 
to have this corner chipped off, and that jutting 
angle rounded by the chisel.

But God's people are living stones, and therefore, 
they feel every stroke. We are so tender skinned 
that we cannot bear a 'thread of trouble' to lie upon 
us—we shrink from even the touch of the chisel. 

To be hewed, then, and squared, and chiselled 
by the hand of God into such shapes and forms 
as please Him—O what painful work it is! 

If the Lord, then, is at work upon our souls . . . 
we have not had, 
we are not now having, 
we shall never have . . .
one stroke too much, 
one stroke too little, 
one stroke in the wrong direction.
But there shall be just sufficient to work in us 
that which is pleasing in God's sight—and to 
make us that which He would have us to be. 

What a great deal of trouble would we be spared 
if we could only patiently submit to the Lord's 
afflicting stroke—and know no will but His.

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