Increase of Strength.
The troubles with which the plants of God's right-hand planting are assailed when they are saplings are very inconsiderable compared with those which blow about them when they become, like cedars, strongly rooted. When we grow strong, so sure as our strength increases, our sufferings, our trials, our labors, or our temptations, will be multiplied. God's power is never communicated to any man to be laid up in store. The food which is given to strengthen us, like the manna which was gathered by the Israelites in the wilderness, is intended for immediate use. When the Lord puts upon our feet the shoes of iron which He has promised us in the covenant, it is that we may walk in them—not that we may put them into our museum, and gaze upon them as curiosities. If He gives us a strong hand, it is because we have a strong foe to fight with. If He shall give us a great meal, as He did Elijah of old, it is that we may go for a forty-day's journey in the strength of that meal.