If any gift escapes this life untested, it will certainly not be our faith

I was reading this today from Streams in The Desert, and I wanted to share it (actually, I felt compelled to). If you, like me, are feeling lonely, or stripped from earthly pleasures that you used to enjoy, hopefully this speaks peace and strength into your spirit.

"Our faith is the center of the target God aims at when He tests us, and if any gift escapes untested, it certainly will not be our faith. There is nothing that pierces faith to its very marrow - to find whether or not it is the faith of those who are immortal - like shooting the arrow of the feeling of being deserted into it. And only genuine faith will escape unharmed from the midst of the battle after having been stripped of its armor of earthly enjoyment and after having endured the circumstances coming against it that the powerful hand of God has allowed.

Faith must be tested, and the sense of feeling deserted is "the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual" (Daniel 3:19) into which it may be thrown. Blessed is the person who endures such an ordeal!" ~Charles H. Spurgeon (emphasis mine)