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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
In 1895, while visiting England, South African pastor Andrew Murray suffered the return of an old back injury. Pain had quieted his movements but not his faith and one morning, his hostess mentioned a woman weighed down by sorrow and asked if he might send her a word of counsel. Murray reached for a sheet of paper and said: “Give her this paper which I have been writing for my own encouragement. It may be that she will find it helpful.”
What he handed her was a distillation of tested trust:
“In time of trouble say:
First—God brought me here. It is by His will I am in this strait place; in that I will rest.
Next—He will keep me in His love and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child.
Then—He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.
Last—In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.
I am here—by God’s appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time.”
As I reflect on my own journey, the slow valleys, the prayers that seem unanswered, the aches that test conviction, I hear Murray’s words echo. Many of us live under the weight of what we cannot control, delays, disappointments, and the quiet tears that mark our devotion. Yet God still weaves purpose through pain, His hand does not tremble and His plan does not fail. Through Murray’s wisdom, the character of God is reaffirmed—steady, sovereign, near—and the frailty of our perception is revealed. Trial is not punishment, it is preparation, the heat is not meant to destroy, it is meant to refine. Let us look deeper.
By God’s Appointment: “God brought me here. It is by His will I am in this strait place.”
Nothing in a believer’s story is random. Every turn, delay, and disappointment is stamped with divine intention. As children of God, we do not drift on chance winds, we walk on ordered steps. “The steps of a man are established by the Lord, and He delights in his way” (Psalm 37:23). “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” (Proverbs 16:9). This establishment includes both the heights of promise and the valleys of pain, for God’s appointments and permissions are not always comfortable, but they are always purposeful.
To be appointed by God means to be chosen for His glory, positioned within His plan, and sustained by His hand. Every believer is called into this sacred arrangement. Your life is not a sequence of accidents, it is a tapestry of intention. Even the dark threads serve the design. When we say “God brought me here,” we confess that His sovereignty is not suspended by our suffering and He reigns just as fully in the prison as in the palace. Joseph knew this well, sold by his brothers, imprisoned for righteousness, forgotten by men, yet never lost to God. The very chain that bound him became the link to destiny and what seemed like exile was placement. Years later, when power was his and vengeance was possible, Joseph looked back and said, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 50:20). His appointment included struggle, but the struggle served salvation. So too with us, our difficulties and trials often hide divine callings.
God never promised we would avoid the valley, He promised we would not walk it alone. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). His presence is the proof of His appointment and the valley does not cancel His guidance, it confirms it. He leads us beside still waters, yes—but also through shadows, shaping faith that can stand in the dark. So when trouble closes in and you find yourself in a “strait place,” do not rush to escape, pause and recognize divine purpose. You are here by God’s appointment, not abandonment and the hand that led you here has not withdrawn. The same voice that called you will sustain you and what feels like a dead end is usually the doorway to the next chapter of grace. Before we ask “Why me?” let us remember “It is He.” For where God appoints, He also anoints.
In His Keeping “He will keep me in His love and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child.”
The grace to behave as a child is an uncelebrated wonder of the gospel. Children don’t analyze the strength of a father’s arm, they rest in it. They do not negotiate love, they receive it. So the Spirit trains our hearts out of fear and into sonship: “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15). Adoption is not a metaphor, it is a new manner of living—trust over terror, dependence over self-defense, obedience born of love.
Even if human tenderness fails, divine devotion does not: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast…? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49:15). This is the keepership of God, personal, unhurried, and unwavering. “The LORD is your keeper… He will keep your life” (Psalm 121:5–8). When Murray wrote that God would “keep me in His love,” he was not speaking of escape from pain but of endurance within it. Divine keeping does not always remove the trial immediately, it refines the believer through it. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). This is the Father’s grip that never fails, even when we stumble, His hand does not release. Jesus said, “No one will snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28). We are kept not by our grip on God, but by God’s grip on us.
From that security flows grace, the grace to “behave as His child” when pressure mounts, to answer scarcity with trust, injury with forgiveness, confusion with quiet obedience, and delay with patient hope.
Hear the Father’s voice over your trial: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). You are not merely enduring, you are being kept. Let this sonship shape your posture in the fire. Cry “Abba,” and keep walking, the Keeper has you.
Under His Training “He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons He intends me to learn.”
Every believer enlisted in God’s kingdom is also enrolled in His classroom. The curriculum is not comfort but conformity to the image of His Son. And this training ground is often painful. Scripture tells us plainly: “The Lord corrects the people He loves and disciplines those He calls His own” (Hebrews 12:6). Discipline is not divine rejection, it is divine refinement. God’s permissive will allows what His perfect will intends to redeem. What the enemy crafts for destruction, the Father transforms into instruction.
James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:2–4). Trials do not come to disprove our faith but to develop, it teaches what comfort cannot—humility that listens, endurance that holds, prayer that reaches beyond words, and obedience that does not negotiate.
Peter likened our testing to the refining of gold: “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold” (1 Peter 1:6–7). The impurities rise only when the heat is applied. What looks like loss is often the slow construction of character, the hammer does not hate the metal, it shapes it. The writer of Hebrews adds: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10–11). Notice the phrase“trained by it.” Pain that is submitted to God becomes instruction, pain that is ignored is wasted.
Under His training, the soul learns the language of likeness. We begin to see that maturity is not the absence of storms but faith that stands within them. God is not trying to break us, He is trying to build us. Each trial is an invitation to deeper dependence, a reminder that grace grows best in difficult ground. So when the furnace glows and the pressure mounts, remember this: your Father is not punishing you, He is preparing you. The same fire that destroys straw refines gold. If you are under His training, you are under His eye, and under His love. He will make the trial a blessing, teaching you lessons He intends you to learn, until faith, tested and tempered, shines with the likeness of Christ.
For His Time “In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.”
Deliverance is never late, it arrives exactly on heaven’s clock. “My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:15). God’s timing is not our delay, it is His design and waiting is not wasted time, it is worship in disguise. The silence between promise and fulfillment is where faith grows its roots deep. What we call delay, God calls development and throughout Scripture, we see this pattern. The righteous cry out, and the Lord delivers at the appointed time. “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles” (Psalm 34:17). “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress” (Psalm 107:6).
God’s arm is never too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear (Isaiah 59:1). He hears, He remembers, He rescues when the season is ripe. But “after you have suffered a little while”—notice the phrase—“the God of all grace… will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). God allows the “little while” because character is formed in the wait. “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). If beauty has a schedule, so does deliverance.
Waiting is hard, but it is required if our faith is to mean anything. The psalmist reminds us, “Wait for the Lord be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). To wait is to trust that His pace is perfect and His plan complete. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). The One who holds the blueprint of our lives knows when each wall must rise and when each foundation must cure.
Even time itself bends to His sovereignty. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). What feels long to us is but a moment in His mercy. Heaven does not rush and when His appointed hour comes, deliverance will break forth suddenly, unmistakably, and beautifully. So take courage in the wait, patience is not passive, it is proof of trust. When the season turns and the door opens, you will see that God was not silent, He was staging something greater. For His time means His wisdom, His rhythm and His unveiling. When He brings you out, it will be clear, it was never late, it was right on time.
Each line of Murray’s note turns our gaze upward, from circumstance to sovereignty, from confusion to calling. In every trial, the same truth steadies us: we are by His appointment, in His keeping, under His training, for His time.
Prayer for Difficult Times
Heavenly Father,
You are the God who appoints, the Keeper who never sleeps, the Teacher who refines, and the Deliverer who never delays. Every turn of my life lies open before You and nothing has caught You unaware.
I confess that I have often wrestled against Your timing, mistook Your correction for rejection, and doubted Your love in the dark. Yet today, I remember that You have brought me here by Your appointment, You are keeping me in Your love, You are training me in Your wisdom, and You will bring me out again in Your time and for Your glory.
Teach me to rest where I stand, even in the narrow places. Give me the grace to behave as Your child when storms rise. To trust instead of tremble, to worship instead of worry, to yield instead of resist. Let the trials that test me also shape me, until my hearts reflects the image of Christ.
When the waiting feels long and the silence feels heavy, remind me that heaven’s clock never falters. You are not slow, You are perfect. The hands that hold time also hold me. So I lift my eyes again to You, my Rock, my Keeper, my Teacher, my Deliverer.
Refine me until my trials become testimonies and my pain becomes praise. Bring forth beauty in its time, O Lord, and let every trouble serve Your purpose.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.