Sick, Unemployed, and Engaged
I’m currently ploughing through Thomas Boston’s biography found in volume 12 of his works. Aside from some humorous sections, I’m finding in Boston a kindred spirit in matters of the application of grace to my soul. Take, for example, his advice to himself when he was facing the particular difficulties of illness, an impending marriage, and no call to a local church.
To carry Christianity in these perplexing circumstances, I proposed to myself, that I should,
- Live near God, so as my heart should not have wherewith to reproach me, Job 27:6; Acts 23:1.
- Beware of anxious thoughts about them; lay them before the Lord in prayer, and leave them on him, trusting him with him, though in a manner blindly, Phil 4:6;
- Believe the promise, that all things should work together for my good, Rom 8:28;
- Remember man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, with my former experiences of the same, Gen 22:14;
- Use of the means [Bible study, prayer, sacraments] with dependence on the Lord for success;
- Be diligent about the work of my station, and ply my studies more closely; and for this end, beware of sleeping too much;
- Lastly, Not think that, because God doth not presently answer, therefore he will not answer at all, but wait on him; Isa 28:16;
and if at any time I begin to faint under my difficulties, I should press myself to hang by the promises, remembering the shortness of my time, and that no man knows love or hatred by all that is before him; and should read Heb 12. And my conscience bore me witness, that to be helped so to live in a course of filial obedience, would be more sweet to me, than to be rid of all these difficulties.
- Thomas Boston, The Complete Works of the Late Rev. Thomas Boston (1853; repr., Tentmaker Publications: Stokes-on-Trent, 2002), 12:65.
