The Trial of Faith
The Edomite saint [a classical title for Job] must have looked into birds’ nests when he used the comparison, “I said, I shall die in my nest” (Job 29:18). That is what a good many people say. They build each a nest for himself, and not for a summer, but for a life. They say that they shall die in it after many years of enjoyment of it. But they need the treatment the mother bird gives her young. Her first step is to make the nest uncomfortable. “As an eagle stirreth up her nest” (Deuteronomy 32:11), she mixes the thorny outside with the downy inside. So God, by his testing providences, makes the place of rest one of unrest to us, and thus lures us out to trust ourselves to his care and guidance over untried ways. And so he brings us to a stronger, maturer, more useful life. The wind roots the tree deeper in the soil. The stormy waves cause the anchor to take a stronger grip. There are advantages in disadvantages. Disappointments have proven God’s best appointments. Financial ruin has proved a man’s salvation. Sickness has brought many highest health”
– Dr G. Hallock, R3351