One of the happiest men I ever knew was a man in Dundee, Scotland, who
had fallen and broken his back when he was a boy of fifteen. He had
lain on his bed for about forty years, and could not be moved without
a good deal of pain. Probably not a day had passed in all those years
without acute suffering. But day after day the grace of God had been
granted to him, and when I was in his chamber it seemed as if I was as
near heaven as I could get on earth. I can imagine that when the
angels passed over Dundee, they had to stop there to get refreshed.
When I saw him, I thought he must be beyond the reach of the tempter,
and I asked him: "Doesn't Satan ever tempt you to doubt God, and to
think that He is a hard Master?"
"Oh, yes," he said, "he does try to tempt me. I lie here and see my
old schoolmates driving along in their carriages, and Satan says: 'If
God is so good, why does He keep you here all these years? You might
have been a rich man, riding in your own carriage.' Then I see a man
who was young when I was walk by in perfect health, and Satan
whispers: 'If God loved you, couldn't He have kept you from breaking
your back?'"
"What do you do when Satan tempts you?"
"Ah, I just take him to Calvary, and I show him Christ, and I point
out those wounds in His hands and feet and side, and say, 'Doesn't He
love me?' and the fact is, he got such a scare there eighteen hundred
years ago that he cannot stand it; he leaves me every time."
That bedridden saint had not much trouble with doubts; he was too full
of the grace of God.