Such lessons! – Thomas Brooks

“Blessed is the man You chasten, O Lord, the man You teach from Your law.” Psalm 94:12

All the chastening in the world, without divine teaching, will never make a man blessed. That man who finds correction attended with instruction, and lashing with lessoning is a happy man.

If God, by the affliction which is upon you, shall teach you:
how to loathe sin more, and
how to trample upon the world more, and
how to walk with God more
your afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach you by afflictions:
how to die to sin more, and
how to die to your relations more,
and how to die to your self-interest more
your afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach you by afflictions:
how to live to Christ more,
how to lift up Christ more, and
how to long for Christ more
your afflictions are in love.

If God shall teach you by afflictions:
how to mind heaven more,
how to live in heaven more, and
how to fit for heaven more
your afflictions are in love.

If God by afflictions shall teach:
your proud heart how to lie more low,
your hard heart how to grow more tender,
your censorious heart how to grow more charitable,
your carnal heart how to grow more spiritual,
your froward heart how to grow more quiet
your afflictions are in love.

When God teaches your thoughts as well as your brains, your heart as well as your head, any of these lessons your afflictions are in love.

Where God loves, He afflicts in love; and wherever God afflicts in love, there He will, sooner or later, teach such souls such lessons as shall do them good to all eternity.