Believer, if your inheritance seems lowly, be satisfied with your earthly portion! Rest assured—it is the fittest for you. Unerring wisdom ordained your lot and selected for you the safest and best condition.

Picture this: A massive cargo ship needs to navigate upriver to the harbor. But there's a sandbank lurking in one section of the channel. Someone watching might ask, "Why doesn't the captain take the straight route? Why all this weaving back and forth?" And the captain would answer, "Because if I don't keep to the deep channel, I'll never make it to harbor at all."

So it is with you! You would run aground and suffer shipwreck if your divine Captain didn't steer you into the depths of affliction, where waves of trouble follow each other in quick succession. Some plants die with too much sunshine. You are planted where you get but little—placed there by the loving Husbandman, because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection.

Remember this: Had any other condition been better for you than the one you're in, divine love would have put you there. You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances. And if you had the choosing of your lot? You would soon cry, "Lord, choose my inheritance for me, for by my self-will I am pierced through with many sorrows!"

Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good. Take up your own daily cross—it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God.

Down, busy self! Down, proud impatience! It is not for you to choose, but for the Lord of Love!

"Trials must and will befall— But with humble faith to see Love inscribed upon them all; This is happiness to me."