FROM GRACE TO GLORY BORN AGAIN by Octavius Winslow

surfeited with creature-good, we are prone to forget and to forsake God,
and even to kick against Him. Our communion with Him is invaded,
and sometimes superseded. The compass is disturbed, and the needle of
the soul swerves away from God.
But the Lord sends trial, and by it He restores the balance of the
affections, attracting them again to their Divine and blessed Center.
Responding to its touch, the truant heart flies back to God, under His
most gracious restorings. Sensible of its backsliding, tasting the
bitterness of its departure, it returns to its rest, and exclaims, "Lord, You
have made my heart for Yourself, and it is restless and unquiet until it
can rest in You." And, then, He who rebuked and chastened puts forth
His hand, and receives back the weather-beaten dove, and the soul folds
its weary wing upon the bosom of God.
To be stirred up to prayer is to be roused to our sweetest privilege and
highest blessing. Therefore it is that God's tried ones are His most
praying ones. The spirit of prayer is within them, but the lance of trial
is often needed to draw it forth. "In return for my friendship they accuse
me, but I am a man of prayer." David's adversaries gave themselves to
persecution and wickedness, but he gave himself to prayer. The more
they persecuted, the more he prayed. As his troubles multiplied, so did
his heaven-sent petitions multiply.
So long as God keeps us in the furnace of trial, so long does He keep us
on our knees at the throne of grace. "Is any afflicted? let him pray." Prayer is
the true sweetener and solace of affliction. Affliction rouses us to
prayer, and prayer in return soothes and hallows the affliction. Not only
do our prayers multiply in trial, but they intensify. We pray not only
more frequently, but more fervently. Of our blessed Lord it is recorded
that, "being in an agony, He prayed MORE EARNESTLY," until He sweat great
drops of blood falling down to the ground.
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