The thing about the Puritans is that they never let you read their writings with eyes and ears for other people.
Modern Christian writers often deal with other people’s sins against us; the Puritans go straight for our sins against God, reminding us that we are not the greatest victims, Christ was. This directness is challenging, convicting, and necessary.
Meditating on wrongs done to us or our difficult circumstances often leads to a sticky mire of self-pity that’s hard to climb out of. This does nothing to improve the life of the one suffering or those in their community.
“You say you cannot bear (your affliction)? So you think that Christ could not bear it? But if Christ could bear it why may you not come to bear it? You will say, Can I have the strength of Christ? Yes, it is made over to you by faith: the Scripture says that the Lord is our strength, God himself is our strength, and Christ is our strength. There are many Scriptures to that effect, that Christ’s strength is yours, made over to you, so that you may be able to bear whatever lies upon you.” (Burroughs)
When we meditate on Christ, He gets the glory, and we get the help we really need. When I consider all I have done to Him, His self-sacrificial love, the humiliation required to bear the Cross I deserve, Who He really is as the Second Person of the Trinity – His grace becomes exponentially more amazing to me, and my gratitude grows in proportion to that.
Bitter people think they deserve better; grateful people know they deserve worse, and so they can find contntment, as Paul did in whatever state they find themselves.
“A godly man wonders at his cross that it is not more, a wicked man wonders his cross is so much.” (Burroughs)
The greatest challenge for me in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment was not merely the exhortation to do what pleases God, but to take pleasure in all God does.
When we can find contentment in the difficult providences He sends to conform us more and more into His image, when He is all we have AND all we desire, we have only begun to learn something of this excellent grace.
Highly recommended for young adults and up.