[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0216":3},"FEBRUARY 16\r\nThough I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more (Nah.1:12).\r\nThere is a limit to affliction. God sends it and removes it Do you sigh and say, \"When will the end be?\" Let us quietly wait and\r\npatiently endure the will of the Lord till He cometh. Our Father takes away the rod when His design in using it is fully served.\r\n\r\nIf the affliction is sent for testing us, that our graces may\r\nglorify God, it will end when the Lord has made us bear witness to His praise.\r\nWe would not wish the affliction to depart until God has gotten out\r\nof us all the honor which we can possibly yield Him. There may be    today \"a great calm.\" Who knows how soon those raging billows will give place to a sea of glass, and the sea birds sit on the gentle\r\nwaves?\r\nAfter long tribulation, the flail is hung up, and the wheat rests\r\nin the gamer. We may, before many hours are past, be just as happy as now we are sorrowful.\r\nIt is not hard for the Lord to turn night into day. He that sends\r\nthe clouds can as easily clear the skies. Let us be of good cheer. It is better farther on. Let us sing Hallelujah by anticipation.\r\n--C. H. Spurgeon.\r\nThe great Husbandman is not always threshing. Trial is only for a\r\nseason. The showers soon pass. Weeping may tarry only for the few hours of the short summer night; it must be gone at daybreak. Our\r\nlight affliction is but for a moment. Trial is for a purpose, \"If needs be.\"\r\nThe very fact of trial proves that there is something in us very\r\nprecious to our Lord; else He would not spend so much pains and time on us. Christ would not test us if He did not see the precious  ore of faith mingled in the rocky matrix of our nature; and it is\r\nto bring this out into purity and beauty that He forces us through the fiery ordeal.\r\nBe patient O sufferer! The result will more than compensate for all\r\nour trials, when we see how they wrought out the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. To have one word of God's\r\ncommendation; to be honored before the holy angels; to be glorified in Christ, so as to be better able to flash His glory on\r\nHimself-ah! that will more than repay for all. --Tried by Fire.\r\nAs the weights of the clock, or the ballast in the vessel, are\r\nnecessary for their right ordering, so is trouble in the soul-life.\r\nThe sweetest scents are only obtained by tremendous pressure; the\r\nfairest flowers grow amid Alpine snow-solitudes; the fairest gems have suffered longest from the lapidary's wheel; the noblest\r\nstatues have borne most blows of the chisel. All, however, are\r\nunder law. Nothing happens that has not been appointed with\r\nconsummate care and foresight. --Daily Devotional Commentary.",1783499792049]