Why do You cast me off?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
~Psalm 43:2b
Spurgeon restates the question, “LORD, why am I called to endure so much for so long?” and considers this a “useful question [when] addressed to the right quarter. The answer will often be because we are saints and MUST BE MADE LIKE OUR HEAD, and because such sorrow is chastening to the spirit and yields comfortable fruit.”
This “being made like our Head” can be a painful process. Better though, as one old puritan calls them, “sanctified afflictions,” than the prosperity and peace of the wicked, for their judgment is sure:
Surely You set them in slippery places;
You cast them down to destruction.
Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment!
They are utterly consumed with terrors.
~Psalm 73:18-19
