This unravels the mystery!

(Octavius Winslow, "Christ, the Counselor")

The path of providence is often paved with
difficulties, and beset with perplexities with
which we can ill cope.

Our way to heaven is through an intricate
wilderness and across a circuitous desert.

To many even of the Lord's people this is
literally the case. Visit their abodes, and
ponder the struggle passing within! All is . . .
poverty and discomfort,
penury of bread,
scantiness of clothing,
pining sickness,
loathsome disease,
excruciating suffering,
with no human friends,
no soothing alleviation,
no earthly comforts.

And yet not entirely unrelieved is this dark picture.

Christ dwells in that obscure abode!

God's eye is watching over it!

There is....
gnawing poverty, and yet boundless wealth;
deep need, and yet a rich supply;
acute suffering, and yet exquisite pleasure;
keen sorrow, and yet unspeakable joy.

And why these paradoxes? How are we
to understand these strange contradictions?

The apostle gives us a clue in a page of his own history.
"As unknown, and yet well known;
as dying, and, behold, we live;
as chastened, and not killed;
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
as poor, yet making many rich;
as having nothing, yet possessing all things."

This unravels the mystery!

The possession of Christ explains it! He who
has Christ in him, and Christ with him, and the
hope of being forever with Christ in glory, is not
a poor, nor a sorrowful, nor a suffering, nor a
lone man. He can say, "I am not alone, for my
Father is with me. I am not poor, for all things
are mine. My body is diseased, but my soul is
in health. I have all and abound."

Can we for a moment doubt His perfect power
to undertake all the cares,
to cope with all the difficulties,
to solve all the doubts, and
to disentangle all the perplexities brought to
Him by His saints in all places and at all times?