A Devotion from Lettie Cowman

“So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” (Job 42:12.)

Through his griefs Job came to his heritage. He was tried that his godliness might be confirmed.

Are not my troubles intended to deepen my character and to robe me in graces I had little of

before? I come to my glory through eclipses, tears, death. My ripest fruit grows against the

roughest wall. Job’s afflictions left him with higher conceptions of God and lowlier thoughts of

himself. “Now,” he cried, “mine eye seeth thee.”

And if, through pain and loss, I feel God so near in His majesty that I bend low before Him

and pray, “Thy will be done,” I gain very much. God gave Job glimpses of the future glory. In

those wearisome days and nights, he penetrated within the veil, and could say, “I know that my

Redeemer liveth.” Surely the latter end of Job was more blessed than the beginning.—In the

Hour of Silence.

“Trouble never comes to a man unless she brings a nugget of gold in her hand.”

Apparent adversity will finally turn out to be the advantage of the right if we are only willing

to keep on working and to wait patiently. How steadfastly the great victor souls have kept at

their work, dauntless and unafraid! There are blessings which we cannot obtain if we cannot

accept and endure suffering. There are joys that can come to us only through sorrow. There are

revealings of Divine truth which we can get only when earth’s lights have gone out. There are

harvests which can grow only after the plowshare has done its work.—Selected.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed

with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire, and through their

tears have the sorrowful first seen the gates of Heaven.