After that ye have suffered awhile,
make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
1 Peter 5:10
"You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are its colors, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes
away, and lo, it is not.
The fair colors give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It is not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops, how can it abide?
The graces of the Christian character must not resemble the rainbow in its transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled, abiding.
May you be rooted and grounded in love.
May your convictions
*be deep,
*your love real,
*your desires earnest.
May your whole life be so settled and established,.....
It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no rough
winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which the roots have forced their way.
So the Christian is made strong, and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life. Shrink not then from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you."
Charles Spurgeon