"In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." --- Isaiah 30:15.
"In your patience possess ye your souls." --- Luke 21:19.
Christians must suffer patiently, and patience is their armour, while God is fighting for them. But when we are unwilling to suffer, going about to make complaints everywhere, and to seek comfort, or to rid ourselves by contrivances, we lose the comfort of the Lord's help, we are stirring up the wasp-nest of our unruly thoughts, and more trouble upon ourselves and others; nay, we are fighting against God, who hereby intends to cure our impatience, pride, and anger.
For the more peevish and wild we are, the more desperate is our disease; and consequently we have so much more need of such sharp and wholesome trials of affliction to mortify those bad passions of the flesh. Therefore, we must not presume to murmur and complain, which will only make bad worse; for he who, through imaptience, will flee from one trouble, may run into ten others; and though it is possible sometimes to rid ourselves out of trouble, yet the help is not so glorious and blessed as if we had waited for help of the Lord.
Sure I must bear, if I would reign;
Increase my courage, Lord!
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain,
Supported by thy word.
Must I be carried to the skies,
On flowery beds of ease,
While others suffer'd for the prize,
And sail'd through bloody seas?