One night I was greatly tempted because I felt so helpless.  There was nothing I could do to protect you, and the burden was heavy.  Suddenly it was as if a voice said, ‘Leave it to Me, child, leave it to Me’.

 ‘In your temptations run to the promises:  they may be our Lord’s branches hanging over the water, that our Lord’s silly half-drowned children may take a grip of them.’  And those boughs never break.

…if you have yielded to the pressure of God’s heavy hand upon the thorn within, then take comfort, because with Him is pardon.

Don’t rush into God’s Presence as though it were a common thing.  We have a God who notices the preparation of the heart. 

Has His kindness ever departed from us?  Has the covenant of His peace been broken?  No, never for an hour. 

That quality which Paul calls the meekness and gentleness of Christ (2 Cor, 10.1) is not naturally in us.  We are not ‘tough’ yet ‘tractable’ and ‘docile’.  I counsel thee to buy of Me.

He will not lose hope about us. 

He who carries you, carries your-bundle too.

What would be the point of an obstacle race if there were no obstacles?  It would be foolish to say, ‘Couldn’t you clear these obstacles off the field, and make the race nice and easy?’

And yet that is exactly what we often ask God to do for us.  ‘Please make it a bit easier, it’s too hard for me’.

‘Faith reaches forth to that which it does not grasp’.