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  MAKE A WAY
  by Charles E. Cowman
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Summary: God uses trials to develop our patience, character, and
spiritual growth, and we should submit ourselves to His will and trust
in His promise.

Topics: "Spiritual Growth", "Faith And Trials"
Scripture References: Isaiah 49:11, Romans 5:3, Hebrews 12:11, James 1:2, 1 Peter 1:6

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DESCRIPTION
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Charles E. Cowman preaches about how God uses obstacles in our lives to
serve His purpose, emphasizing that the challenges we face are often the
very conditions needed for spiritual growth and the development of
virtues like patience. He highlights that these obstacles, whether heavy
claims, difficult circumstances, or daily struggles, are opportunities
for us to grow in faith and character, rather than hindrances to be
removed. Cowman encourages believers to embrace their trials, submit to
God's will, and trust that He will make a way through the mountains in
our lives.

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CONTENT
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"I will make all my mountains a way" (Isa.49:11).

God will make obstacles serve His purpose. We all have mountains in our
lives. There are people and things that threaten to bar our progress in
the Divine life. Those heavy claims, that uncongenial occupation, that
thorn in the flesh, that daily cross--we think that if only these were
removed we might live purer, tenderer, holier lives; and often we pray
for their removal.

"Oh, fools, and slow of heart!" These are the very conditions of
achievement; they have been put into our lives as the means to the very
graces and virtues for which we have been praying so long. Thou hast
prayed for patience through long years, but there is something that
tries thee beyond endurance; thou hast fled from it, evaded it,
accounted it an unsurmountable obstacle to the desired attainment, and
supposed that its removal would secure thy immediate deliverance and
victory.

Not so! Thou wouldest gain only the cessation of temptations to
impatience. But this would not be patience. Patience can be acquired
only through just such trials as now seem unbearable.

Go back; submit thyself. Claim to be a partaker in the patience of
Jesus. Meet thy trials in Him. There is nothing in life which harasses
and annoys that may not become subservient to the highest ends. They are
His mountains. He puts them there. We know that God will not fail to
keep His promise. "God understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the
place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under
the whole heaven"; and when we come to the foot of the mountains, we
shall find the way.--Christ in Isaiah, by Meyer

"The meaning of trial is not only to test worthiness, but to increase
it; as the oak is not only tested by the storm, but toughened by them."

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/charles-e-cowman/make-a-way/
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