[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":4},["ShallowReactive",2],{"reading-0907":3},"SEPTEMBER 7\r\nGod is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1).\r\nThe question often comes, \"Why didn't He help me sooner?\" It T is not His order. He must first adjust you to the trouble and cause\r\nyou to learn your lesson from it. His promise is, \"I will be with\r\nhim in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him.\" He must be with you in the trouble first all day and all night Then He will take\r\nyou out of it This will not come till you have stopped being\r\nrestless and fretful about it and become calm and quiet Then He will say, \"It is enough.\"\r\nGod uses trouble to teach His children precious lessons. They are Intended to educate us. When their good work is done, a glorious\r\nrecompense will come to us through them. There is a sweet joy and a real value in them. He does not regard them as difficulties but\r\nas opportunities. --Selected.\r\nNot always OUT of our troublous times, And the struggles fierce and grim,\r\nBut IN-deeper IN-to our sure rest, The place of our peace, in Him.\r\n--Annie Johnson Flint.\r\nWe once heard a simple old colored man say something that we have never forgotten: \"When God tests you, it is a good time for you to\r\ntest Him by putting His promises to the proof, and claiming from Him just as much as your trials have rendered necessary.\"\r\nThere are two ways of getting out of a trial. One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over. The other\r\n\r\nis to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger\r\nblessing than we have ever had, and to hail it with delight as an\r\nopportunity of obtaining a larger measure of Divine grace. Thus\r\neven the adversary becomes an auxiliary, and the things that seem to be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way.\r\nSurely, this is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved\r\nus. --A. B. Simpson.",1783499793830]