WE COUNT THEM HAPPY WHICH ENDURE

 

EVENING DEVOTION by James Smith

AUGUST 26

 

James 5:11

Behold, we count them happy which endure.

 
Our afflictions are trials.
 
Every professor shall be tried.
 
Many faint in the day of adversity.
 
Some go back and walk no more with the Saviour.
 
The effect of the strike is according to the nature of that on which it falls.
 
The softened yields; the hardened flies.
 
Some under this discipline fall at his feet, but others fly in his face.
 
Happy is the man who meets his trials like a Christian, with humility, faith, fortitude, and patience.
 
Who endures them without repining, complaining, and rebelling against God.
 
He looks not so much at the rod, as at the hand that uses it.
 
Nor only at the hand, but at the heart that guides the hand.
 
He says, “It is discipline. It is chastisement. It is my Father who strikes, and he never corrects for his own pleasure but my profit, to make me a partaker of his holiness.”
 
I have prayed for deeper sanctification, he is answering my prayer.
 
I have desired brighter evidences for heaven, he is granting them.
 
Shall I then complain?
 
The cup which my heavenly Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?”
 
Such a man endures affliction, he meets it, he proves it as a Christian.
 
He is blessed.
 

Wisdom and mercy guide my way!

Shall I resist them both?

A poor blind creature of the day,

And crush’d before the moth.

 
James Smith