20. FAITH'S TRIUMPH OVER AFFLICTION.
20. FAITH'S TRIUMPH OVER AFFLICTION.
In a little while, I shall be where I never was before. And where I now am, I shall never be again. Along with every immortal, I shall be in eternity, and bid a final farewell to time. I shall just be in that heavenly place where my happy meditations now are.
In your presence, O Savior! at your throne, O King of kings! shall I find my heaven. Surely, then, it can never become an expectant of so much bliss, to be sad for anything but sin, or to find lasting joy in anything but in God.
When I am no more numbered with the living—but lamented over as a broken vessel, I shall mingle with the multitudes of the living God, with the armies of light, and exult in my celestial privilege forever.
Like the rest of Adam's discontented family, I am often grumbling at my griefs, complaining of my afflictions, and on the brink of quarreling at the conduct of Providence itself! To be without afflictions is impossible here below, where man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Not to feel when afflicted, is a stoical, impious stupidity.
But to sink under troubles of any kind, is beneath the character of the Christian. Yet, when I reflect on that eternity of bliss which is before me, on that world of glory of which I am an heir, I wonder that my afflictions are not rather more.
Is it much for me to stumble among the 'rough stones of adversity'—to have my flesh pricked with the 'thorns of trouble'—who shall so soon walk the golden streets of heaven, and wear a crown of immortal glory? Though the whole earth should rise up against me—if heaven, and the God of heaven is for me—I am in perfect safety in the midst of all the storms and tempests, whirlwinds and hurricanes, which can blow!