I do not wonder when strong men say strong things, but I have often marvelled when I have heard such heroic sentences from the weak and trembling. To hear the sorrowing comfort others, when you would think they needed comfort themselves; to mark their cheerfulness, when if you and I suffered half as much we should have sunk to the earth — this, is, worthy of note.
God’s strength is perfectly revealed in the trials of the weak. When you see a man of God brought into poverty, and yet in that poverty never repining; when you hear his character assailed by slander, and yet he stands unmoved like a rock amidst the waves; when you see the gracious man persecuted and driven from home and country for Christ’s sake, and yet he takes joyfully the spoiling of his goods and banishment and disgrace — then the strength of God is made perfect in the midst of weakness. While the man of God suffers, and is under necessities and distresses, and infirmities, then it is that the power of God is seen. It was when tiny creatures made Pharaoh tremble that his magicians said, “This is the finger of God,” and evermore God’s greatest glory comes from things weak and despised.
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Strengthening Words From The Savior's Lips," delivered April 2, 1876. Image by Jenny Pansing on Flickr under Creative Commons License.
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