Through the Trials

The following is from Billy Graham's devotional Unto the Hills:

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
Isaiah 48:10, NIV

"A prisoner recently released from years at hard labor, without a Bible, drew for his spiritual nourishment on the passages of Scripture which he had memorized since his conversion as a young boy.

"One he mentioned particularly was Psalm 66.  As I read that psalm I was impressed by the fact that the psalmist recognized no secondary causes.

"Beginning with verse 10 he says, 'For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.'  Verse 11, 'You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.'  Verse 12, 'You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance' (italics mine).

"In the Scriptures we find this also true in the case of Job.  Job did not know that Satan had to get permission from God before he could touch Job, much less Job's possessions.  Yet when Job had lost everything he did not say, 'The Lord gave and the devil has taken away,' but 'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised' (Job 1:21, NIV).

"So when we are hurt it is important to remember that God Himself has allowed it for a purpose.

"It was a theologian from the nineteenth century, Edward B. Pusey, who said it so well:  'God does not take away trials or carry us over them, but strengthens us through them.'"