Inner Comfort

Beloved, what cannot we expect from God, who is now our God! What he is, what he is able to do, what he has, all is ours. The wise merchant in the gospel sold all for the field wherein the treasure was (Matt. 13:44). We have the field itself in having God, and having God we have all.
However, if God be ours, and all things else, how comes it that we want so many things? It is our own fault for the most part. If God be our God and Father in Christ, why have we sins? Why vexed with the devil? Why persecuted from men? Why frightened thus, and thus, and thus? All this is for our good. God is our God in the midst of these; and is never more our God than in the greatest extremity of all. When we have nothing to go to but God there is a sweet communion and the sweetest comfort. We have inward comforts when outward ones have deserted. God was never more near our blessed Saviour than on the cross, when he cried, 'My God, my God,’ for then he found invincible strength supporting him in the great undertaking under the wrath of his Father. We never have sweeter comforts than in the want of all outward comforts, when nothing else can comfort us but the presence of God. We must know that the state of a Christian in this world is a hidden condition; for it is to the eye of faith, not of sense. Who observes the influence of the sun? Light we see, but there is a secret influence pierces deeper than the light, to the very depths of the earth. Where no light comes, still there is an influence, though not discerned. Much more can there be spiritual influences of strength and power and hidden comfort, though there be no sight. Cannot God be our God though there be no visible and sensible comfort, though even we see it not? Certainly, the soul is upheld by an invincible strength in the worst condition that can be.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
A Heavenly Conference, pp. 126-29
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