“We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God. When our work is light, our prospects good, and everything looks smooth and easy, we are more apt to give ourselves over to pleasure … A great many have a wrong idea of God, and think he sends afflictions because He doesn’t love them; they think that because they don’t know Him. He sends afflictions to humble our hearts and make us look to Him, and because He loves us, so he cannot let us leave Him and forget Him.”
D.L. Moody in Glad Tidings Comprising Sermons and Prayer Meeting Talks (New York: E.B. Treat, 1876) 487-488, echoes the words of Agur (cf. Proverbs 30:7-9).
What we “give ourselves over to” reveals our idea of God. Does prosperity fuel our self-indulgence or generosity? When we suffer affliction do we complain and treat it as punishment or joyfully receive it as a gift. Our response to life’s blessings and burdens shows where our heart is.