This hard school of painful experience'
Back to Man's religion & God's religion 4
In times of trial and darkness, the saints and servants
of God are instructed. They see and feel what the flesh
really is, how alienated from the life of God—they learn
in whom all their strength and sufficiency lie—they are
taught that in them, that is, in their flesh, dwells no
good thing—that no exertions of their own can maintain
in strength and vigour the life of God—and that all they
are and have, all they believe, know, feel, and enjoy,
with all their ability, usefulness, gifts, and grace—flow
from the pure, sovereign grace—the rich, free, undeserved,
yet unceasing goodness and mercy of God.
They learn in this hard school of painful experience
their emptiness and nothingness—and that without Christ
indeed they can do nothing. They thus become clothed
with humility, that lovely, becoming garb—cease from
their own strength and wisdom—and learn experimentally
that Christ is, and ever must be, all in all to them, and
all in all in them.