"Suffering is appointed for us in this life as a great mercy to keep us from loving this world more than we should and to make us rely on God who raises the dead. 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God' (Acts 14:22). There is no other way. Do not begrudge them. They are hard to bear. I know they are. But if you keep your inheritance before you, and if God gives you the grace to see what Paul calls 'the riches of the glory of his inheritance' (Ephesians 1:18), then will you not say with the apostle, 'I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us'?
"Picture this life as a journey on your way to receive a spectacular inheritance. It will protect you from idolatry and make all your burdens lighter, and quiet all your murmurings.
"Here's the way the old John Newton put it:
Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession
of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile
before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of
the way; what a fool we should think him, if we saw him ringing his
hands, and blubbering out all the remaining mile, "My [carriage] is
broken! My [carriage] is broken!" (Richard Cecil, Memoirs of
the Rev. John Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John
Newton, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985),
p. 108.)
"Amen."
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