The Privileges of Trial
Charles Spurgeon · Gleanings among the Sheaves
It is said, that when the stars cannot be seen during the day from the
ordinary level of the earth, if one should go down into a dark well,
they would be visible at once. And certainly it is a fact, that the best
of God's promises are usually seen by His Church when she is in her
darkest trials. As sure as ever God puts His children in the furnace, He
will be in the furnace with them. I do not read that Jacob saw the
angel, until he came into a position where he had to wrestle, and then
the wrestling Jacob saw the wrestling angel. I do not know that Joshua
ever saw the angel of God, till he was by Jericho; and then Joshua saw
the angelic warrior. I do not know that Abraham ever saw the Lord, till
he had become a stranger and a wanderer in the plains of Mamre, and then
the Lord appeared unto him as a wayfaring man. It is in our most
desperate sorrows that we have our happiest experiences. You must go to
Patmos to see the revelation. It is only on the barren, storm-girt rock,
shut out from all the world's light, that we can find a fitting
darkness, in which we can view the light of heaven undistracted by the
shadows of earth.