Through Faith

"Pressed out of measure" (2 Cor. 1:8).

"That the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2Cor. 12:9)

God allowed the crisis to close around Jacob on
the night when he bowed at Peniel in
supplication, to bring him to the place where he
could take hold of God as he never would have
done; and from that narrow pass of peril, Jacob
became enlarged in his faith and knowledge of
God, and in the power of a new and victorious
life.

God had to compel David, by a long and painful
discipline of years, to learn the almighty power
and faithfulness of his God, and grow up into the
established principles of faith and godliness,
which were indispensable for his glorious career
as the king of Israel.

Nothing but the extremities in which Paul was
constantly placed could ever have taught him, and
taught the Church through him, the full meaning
of the great promise he so learned to claim, "My
grace is sufficient for thee."

And nothing but our trials and perils would ever
have led some of us to know Him as we do, to
trust Him as we have, and to draw from Him the
measures of grace which our very extremities made
indispensable.

Difficulties and obstacles are God's challenges
to faith. When hindrances confront us in the path
of duty, we are to recognize them as vessels for
faith to fill with the fullness and
all-sufficiency of Jesus; and as we go forward,
simply and fully trusting Him, we may be tested,
we may have to wait and let patience have her
perfect work; but we shall surely find at last
the stone rolled away, and the Lord waiting to
render unto us double for our time of testing.
--A. B. Simpson