Gentleness of God with Man – Charles Spurgeon

WHEN a man has taken to gardening who does not understand it, if he takes his knife in the pruning season, at what a rate he goes to work! His cutting here and there will do ten times more harm than good, but the gardener who is well skilled is gentle with the knife; and truly, dear friends, our great Gardener has been very gentle with the knife with all his trees. Some of you have lost a husband or a child, and you have come from wealth to poverty. Yes, he has used the knife, or else he were not wise; but he has still spared you some comforts, or else he were not kind; at any rate he has spared you yourself, and he is more than all to your languishing spirit. Thus in the way in which he has dealt with your excrescences, and imprudences, and sins, the Lord has had a world of gentleness with you.