What a pillow on which to rest your aching head

(John MacDuff)

"Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through many trials." 1 Peter 1:6

"If need be!" Three gracious words!

Not one of all my tears has been shed for nothing!

Not one stroke of the rod has been unneeded, or that might have been spared!

Your heavenly Father loves you too much, and too tenderly, to bestow harsher correction than your case requires!

Is it loss of health, or loss of wealth, or loss of beloved friends?
Be still! there was a needs be!

We are no judges of what that "needs be" is. Often through aching hearts we are forced to exclaim, "Your judgments are a great deep!"

But God here pledges Himself that there will not be one unnecessary thorn in the believer's crown of suffering!

No burden too heavy will be laid on him.

No sacrifice too great will be exacted from him.

God will temper the wind to the shorn lamb.

Whenever the "need be" has accomplished its end, then . . .
  the rod is removed;
  the chastisement is suspended;
  the furnace is quenched.

"If need be!" Oh! what a pillow on which to rest your aching head-that there is not a drop in all your bitter cup but what a God of love saw to be absolutely necessary!

Trust His loving heart-even though you cannot trace His mysterious hand!

Do not be too curious to prying into the "Why it is?" or "How it is?"
But satisfied that "So it is," and, therefore, that all must be well.

"What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." John 13:7