God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty and strengthened by my weakness… What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! Those, how crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are not intended for our pleasure, they are for our profit.
The evidence of genuine piety is to be found in real humility, self-distrust, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, sorrow for sin, and a continual effort to regulate your thoughts, feelings, and conduct by the Word of God.
