Tested by Fire

There is a certain irony to the fruit of suffering.

-Bunyan's confinement taught him the pilgrim path of Christian freedom.
-Cowper's mental illness yielded sweet music of the mind for troubled souls.
-Brainerd's smouldering misery of isolation and disease exploded in a global mission beyond all imagination.

'Irony and disproportion are all God's way,' says John Piper. 'We think we know how to do something big, and God makes it little. We think that all we have is weak and small, and God makes it big. Barren Sarah gives birth to the child of promise. Gideon's three hundred men defeat a hundred thousand Midianites. A slingshot in the hand of a shepherd boy brings the giant down. A virgin bears the Son of God. A boys five loaves feed thousands. A breach of justice, groveling political expediency, and criminal torture on a gruesome cross become the foundation of the salvation of the world.' (John Piper)