Believe

Every sin is first a lack of confidence in God's benevolence. 

Every sin. 

We need more faith.

The Burning

"In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: 

He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears. 

Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, 

because He was wroth [with my enemies].

There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured:

coals were kindled by it."

The burning. The passionate love of Infinity, at once warming and burning, comforting and causing a terrible trembling...

And coals are kindled by it.

Every bit of warmth we possess, every bit of light, we owe to that wonderful, terrible fire.
Every ounce of usefulness, every drop of passion, any love for souls, any hatred for chains, any power to do anything about them... We owe it all to the burning.

And to be a coal-- To glow red, rolled in ashes, this is a high honor.
The harder the wind blows, the hotter we glow.
Till we're utterly consumed.

Can any other life compare?

Advantage of Suffering

Because it is not joy that brings the deepest communion, or the closest identification with Christ,

but sorrow.