The Apostle Paul had suffered horrible trials and tribulation while traveling through Asia, so bad in fact that he stated in 2nd Corinthians 1:8b, “we despaired even of life.”
In writing of God's sustaining grace concerning the poet William Cowper, Joseph Larson said . . .
“It was William Cowper on his way in a cab to the Thames River to commit suicide, who, when the driver could not find it for the dense fog, returned to his house and thanking God for the fog, wrote:
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps on the sea,
And rides upon the storm.Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His works in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”
Trials can make life seem not worth living. Paul said in 2nd Corinthians 1:9, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” In other words, Paul says, “We felt as if we were under a death sentence and all hope was gone. But we suffered so that we would stop trusting ourselves and learn to trust God, Who raises the dead.”
God will oftentimes bring a Christian to the point in life where there is no direction to look except up, to where all we have left is our faith. When all you have is God, God is all you need. God brought the Apostle Paul to the point where he even despaired life itself, so that Paul would learn to trust completely in God.
