God Displeases Us

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greenbaggins

Puritan Board Doctor
What is best for us? Usually we think we know, and quite often we are way off the mark. Thomas Manton explains:

Good is not to be determined by our fancies and conceits, but by the wisdom of God; for he knoweth what is better for us than we do for ourselves, and the divine choices are to be preferred before our foolish fancies; and what he sendeth and permitteth to fall out is better for us than anything else. Could we be persuaded of this, how would we be prepared for a cheerful entertainment of all that is, or can, or shall come, upon us. God is wiser than we, and loves us better than we do ourselves. The child is not to be governed by his appetite, but the skill of the physician. It is expedient God should displease his people, for their advantage: John xvi. 6,7, 'Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away.' We are too much addicted to our own conceits: Christ's dealing is expedient and useful, when yet it is very unsatisfactory to us. He is to be judge of what is good for us, his going or tarrying, and not we ourselves. We are short-sighted creatures, distempered with passions; our requests many times are but ravings, we ask of God we know not what, as the two brethren, Mat. xx. 22, we pray ourselves into a mischief and a snare, and it were the greatest misery if God would carve out our condition according to our own fancies and desires. From Christ's Transfiguration, in The Works of Thomas Manton, volume I, pp. 379-380.​
 
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