Several times recently I have had occasion to encourage people with the statement, “you need to have a category in your life that believes when you experience the sins of others against you, it is a grace in your life (because your responses will expose either your own sinful desires and idols or they will reveal your growing dependence on the sufficient grace of God).”
John Newton often affirmed similar benefits to the trials endured by believers, as he did in this letter:
A measure of…trials will be necessary for the exercise and manifestation of your graces, to give you a more convincing proof of the truth and sweetness of the promises made to a time of affliction, to mortify the body of sin and to wean you more effectually from the world. But this I will confidently say, that the Lord will both honour and comfort those who thus honour him.…If you meet with troubles, they shall be accompanied by supports, and followed by deliverance; and you shall upon many occasions experience, that he is j our protector, preserving you and yours from the evils by which you will see others suffering around you. [The works of the Rev. John Newton.]
Words of Grace 