Lately, I've been meditating on God's infinite mercy in my life. And thank God it is infinite. Jeremiah Burroughs writes about the evils of complaining. He points out that after the Israelites experienced the miraculous mercy of God to be saved from Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, the first thing they did was complain. They complained about food, so God gave them manna. Then they complained about meat, so God gave them quail. Then they complained about water, so God gave them water.
"So one time after another as soon as they had received mercy, then they were a little quieted, but they were not humbled. I bring these Scriptures to show this, that if we have not been humbled for murmuring, when we meet with the next cross we will fall to murmuring again."
The key is being truly humbled by the afflictions. How easy it is for me to squander the afflictions with a constant state of murmuring. I need to humble myself more in the affliction so that I might savor the sweetness of infinite mercy when it dawns.
The great Reformer Martin Luther says this, "It is the way of God: he humbles that he might exalt, he kills that he might make alive, he confounds that he might glorify."
Burroughs also writes, "Usually the people of God, before the greatest comforts, have the greatest afflictions and sorrows. Now those who understand God's ways think that when God brings his people into sad conditions, he is leaving and forsaking them, and that God does not intend any great good to them. But the child of God who is instructed in this way of God, is not troubled; 'My condition is very low but this is God's way when intends the greatest mercy, to bring men under the greatest afflictions'...A little before daybreak you will observe it is darker than it was any time before, so God will make our conditions a little darker before the mercy comes."
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