Psalms 50:15

"And call thou upon Me in the day of your tribulation: and I will draw you forth, and you shall glorify Me" [Psalm 50:15]. For thou oughtest not to rely on your powers, all your aids are deceitful. "Upon Me call thou in the day of tribulation: I will draw you forth, and you shall glorify Me." For to this end I have allowed the day of tribulation to come to you: because perchance if you were not troubled, you would not call on Me: but when you are troubled, you call on Me; when you call upon Me, I will draw you forth; when I shall draw you forth, you shall glorify Me, that you may no more depart from Me. A certain man had grown dull and cold in fervour of prayer, and said, "Tribulation and grief I found, and on the Name of the Lord I called." He found tribulation as it were some profitable thing; he had rotted in the slough of his sins; now he had continued without feeling, he found tribulation to be a sort of caustic and cutting. "I found," he says, "tribulation and grief, and on the Name of the Lord I called." And truly, brethren, tribulations are known to all men. Behold those afflictions that abound in mankind; one afflicted with loss bewails; another smitten with bereavement mourns; another exiled from country grieves and desires to return, deeming sojourning intolerable; another's vineyard is hailed upon, he observes his labours and all his toil spent in vain. When can a human being not be made sad? An enemy he finds in a friend. What greater misery in mankind? These things all men do deplore and grieve at, and these are tribulations: in all these they call upon the Lord, and they do rightly. Let them call upon God, He is able either to teach how it must be borne, or to heal it when borne. He knows how not to suffer us to be tried above that we are able to bear. [1 Corinthians 10:13] Let us call upon God even in those tribulations: but these tribulations do find us; as in another Psalm is written, "Helper in tribulations which have found us too much:" there is a certain tribulation which we ought to find. Let such tribulations find us: there is a certain tribulation which we ought to seek and to find. What is that? The above-named felicity in this world, abundance of temporal things: that is not indeed tribulation, these are the solaces of our tribulation. Of what tribulation? Of our sojourning. For the very fact that we are not yet with God, the very fact that we are living amid trials and difficulties, that we cannot be without fear, is tribulation: for there is not that peace which is promised us. He that shall not have found this tribulation in his sojourning, does not think of going home to his father-land. This is tribulation, brethren. Surely now we do good works, when we deal bread to the hungry, home to the stranger, and the like: tribulation even this is. For we find pitiful objects upon whom we show pity; and the pitiful case of pitiful objects makes us compassionate. How much better now would it be with you in that place, where you find no hungry man whom you may feed, where you find no stranger whom you may take in, no naked man whom you may cover, no sick man whom you may visit, no litigant whom you may set at one! For all things in that place are most high, are true, are holy, are everlasting. Our bread in that place is righteousness, our drink there is wisdom, our garment there is immortality, our house is everlasting in the heavens, our steadfastness is immortality: does sickness come over? Does weariness weigh down to sleep? No death, no litigation: there peace, quiet, joy, righteousness. No enemy has entrance, no friend falls away. What is the quiet there? If we think and observe where we are, and where He that cannot lie has promised that we are to be, from His very promise we find in what tribulation we are. This tribulation none finds, but he that shall have sought it. You are whole, see if you are miserable; for it is easy for him that is sick to find himself miserable: when you are whole, see if yo