All the afflictions of God’s people are designed, under His gracious management – to test, to make manifest, and to exercise, those graces and virtues which He has implanted in them. Though afflictions in themselves are not joyous but grievous, nevertheless they yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness in those who are exercised thereby. Afflictions serve to quicken the spirit of devotion in us; and to rouse us from that formality and indifference which frequently attend a long course of ease and prosperity. We are constrained to seek God with sincerity and fervor, when His chastening hand is upon us, since we then feel our absolute need of that help and deliverance, which He alone can give us.
— John Fawcett (1740–1817), Baptistenpastor, Theologe, Hymnendichter
Topics: Suffering & the Question of God, Growth & Character, Prayer & Silence
Occasions: Comfort
John Fawcett
John Fawcett (1740–1817) war ein britischer Baptistenpastor, Theologe und Kirchenlieddichter, der über Jahrzehnte in ländlichen Gemeinden in Yorkshire wirkte. Bekannt wurde er vor allem durch den Choral „Blest Be the Tie That Binds“, theologische Schriften zur praktischen Frömmigkeit und sein Engagement in der Ausbildung junger Prediger. Für heutige Bibelleser vermitteln seine Lieder und Kommentare Impulse zu christlicher Gemeinschaft, Sanftmut und treuem Dienst in der Ortsgemeinde.
All quotes by John Fawcett (8)
In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.
Henri Nouwen
Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal.
Henri Nouwen
C.S. Lewis
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
Henri Nouwen
He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Etty Hillesum
God writes straight even on crooked lines.
Paul Claudel
God lets us walk no path that he himself has not walked, and on which he does not go ahead of us.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer