In the time of His presence we have the sense of His love to us. But in the time of His absence then He sees, and we ourselves have the sense of, our love to Him.
A Lifting Up For The Downcast.
Sometimes the clearest evidence that God has not deserted you is not that you are successfully past your trial but that you are still on your feet in the middle of it.
1 Samuel, Focus, 1988, p. 200. Used by Permission. Get this book!
Do I learn through dark providences, or simply seem relieved when they are over?
Healthy Christian Growth, by Permission of the Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA. 1991, p. 25.
Did God really forsake Jesus Christ upon the cross? Then from the desertion of Christ singular consolation springs up to the people of God… (1) Christ’s desertion is preventive of your final desertion. Because He was forsaken for a time you shall not be forsaken forever. For He was forsaken for you… (2)…Though God deserted Christ, yet at the same time He powerfully supported Him. His omnipotent arms were under Him, though His pleased face was hid from Him. He had not indeed His smiles, but He had His supportations. So Christian, just so shall it be with thee. Thy God may turn away His face, He will not pluck away His arm.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 75.
We should never interpret the silence of God as the indifference of God.
Why does the Lord Christ sometimes hide Himself and His glory from the faith of believers? There are many reasons but I will mention only one. He does it to stir us up to search for Him with all our heart. Our wretched laziness so often makes us neglect meditation on heavenly things. But Christ is patient with us. He knows that those who have seen something of His glory, although they have not valued it as they ought, cannot bear His absence for long.
Meditation on the Glory of Christ, 1684, ch. 13.
I know that, as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ’s absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and funisheth a fairfield to faith to put forth itself, and to exercise its fingers in gripping it seeth not what.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 74.
The real sting of suffering is not misfortune itself, nor even the pain of it or the injustice of it, but the apparent God-forsakenness of it. Pain is endurable, but the seeming indifference of God is not…We think of Him as an armchair spectator, almost gloating over the world’s suffering, and enjoying His own insulation from it. It is this terrible caricature of God that the cross smashes to smithereens.
Taken from Cross of Christ by John Stott. Copyright(c) 1986. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, p. 329. www.ivpress.com. http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3320.
When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer
I have never met a man so religious and devout that he has not experienced at some time a withdrawal of grace and felt a lessening of fervor.
When clouds of darkness, atheism, and unbelief come to me, I see Thy purpose of love in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize Him more, in chastening me for my confidence in past successes, that my wound of secret godlessness might be cured.
The Valley of Vision, ed. Arthur Bennett, 1975, p. 79, by permission Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA.
God being a Father, if He hide His face from His child, it is in love. Desertion is sad in itself, a short hell (Job 6:9). When the light is withdrawn, dew falls. Yet we may see a rainbow in the cloud, the love of a Father in all this.
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 74.
