The truth is that God designs trials for Christians, and those trials, says Newton, “are not the tokens of God’s displeasure, but fatherly chastisements, and tokens of his love, designed to promote the work of grace in their hearts, and to make them partakers of his holiness.”53 In the furnace, we must be aware of Satan’s designs aimed at unnecessarily aggravating the pain and embittering us toward God. In trials, we battle for the truth, battle for trust, battle to embrace trials.
