Trials and Pain<\/p>\n
The devil, things and people being what they are, it is necessary for God to use the hammer, the file and the furnace in His holy work of preparing a saint for true sainthood. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.<\/p>\n
The Root of the Righteous, 157.
\n________________________________________<\/p>\n
Trials and Pain: He Puts Me Flat Down<\/p>\n
Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord
\ncame to me, saying, “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the
\nhouse of Israel; therefore hear a word from My mouth, and give them
\nwarning from Me.” Ezekiel 3:16-17<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI once heard a brother preach on the fact that the church should be
\nwithout spot or wrinkle. To get the wrinkles out of a sack, he said,
\nyou fill it. To get a wrinkle out of a rug, you lay it down and walk
\non it. God sometimes fills us, the preacher continued, but sometimes
\nHe just puts us flat down so that everyone can walk on us!<\/p>\nKing David long ago knew something of the latter method. He wrote,
\n“The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows”
\n(Psalm 129:3). I think David was talking about his enemies. And they
\nmust have been wearing hobnail boots!<\/p>\nEzekiel had just come to this kind of a low-ebbed, humbling
\nexperience when God opened the heavens. In effect, God put His hand
\non him and said, “Now I can use you. I have some words and some
\nplans that I want you to pass onto your country-men.”
\nMen Who Met God, pp. 117-118<\/p>\n“Lord, whether You fill me or ‘put me flat down,’ I want to be fit
\nto be Your servant. Use Your best methods on me today, Father, as I
\nsubmit myself for Your use and Your glory. Amen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trials and Pain The devil, things and people being what they are, it is necessary for God to use the hammer, the file and the furnace in His holy work of preparing a saint for true sainthood. It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply. The Root…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}