Scattered Jewels

Beware in your prayers, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what he can do.  Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask or think.  Each time you intercede, be quiet first and worship God in His glory.  Think of what He can do, of how He delights to hear Christ, of your place in Christ; and expect great things.  –Andrew Murray

The capacity for knowing God enlarges as we are brought by Him into circumstances which oblige us to exercise faith; so, when difficulties beset our path let us thank God that He is taking trouble with us, and lean hard upon Him.  
–L.  Cowman

No calamity can be to us an unmixed evil if we carry it in direct and fervent prayer to God, for even as one taking shelter from the rain beneath a tree may find on its branches fruit which he looked not for, so we in fleeing for refuge beneath the shadow of God’s wing, will always find more in God than we had seen or known before.  It is thus through our trials and afflictions that God gives us fresh revelations of Himself; and the Jabbock ford leads us to Peniel, where, as the result of our wrestling, we “see God face to face”,” and our lives are preserved.  Take this to thyself, O captive, and He will give Thee “songs in the night,” and turn for thee “the shadow of death into the morning.”  --William Taylor

God takes the most eminent and choicest of His servants for the choicest and most eminent afflictions.  They who have received most grace from God are able to bear most afflictions from God.  Affliction does not hit the saint by chance, but by direction.  God does not draw His bow at a venture.  Every one of His arrows goes upon a special errand and touches no breast but his against whom it was sent. It is not only the grace, but the glory of a believer when we can stand and take affliction quietly.  –Joseph Carlyl

O my soul, thou hast not one single promise only, like Abraham, but a thousand promises, and many patterns of faithful believers before thee; it behooves, thee, therefore, to rely with confidence upon the Word of God.  And though He delayeth His help, and the evil seemeth to grow worse and worse, be not weak but rather strong, and rejoice, since the most glorious promises of God are generally fulfilled in such a wondrous manner that He steps forth to save us at a time when there is the least appearance of it….He commonly brings His help in our greatest extremity, that His finger may plainly appear in our deliverance.  And this method He chooses that we may not trust upon anything that we see or feel, as we are always apt to do, but only upon His bare Word, which we may depend upon in every state. 
–CH Von Bogatzky

Remember, it is the very time for faith to work when sight ceases.  The greater the difficulties, the easier for faith; as long as there remains certain natural prospects, faith does not get on even as easily as where natural prospects fail.  
–George Mueller

photo from Thistledown Cards