Read for This Week’s Study: Exodus 14, Exod. 15:22–27,

Exod. 17:1–7, Luke 4:1–13, 1 Pet. 1:6–9, Proverbs 3.

Memory Text: “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little

while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter

1:6, NKJV).

In the full light of day, and in hearing of the music of other voices, the

caged bird will not sing the song that his master seeks to teach him.

He learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, but never a separate and entire

melody. But the master covers the cage, and places it where the bird will

listen to the one song he is to sing. In the dark, he tries and tries again to

sing that song until it is learned, and he breaks forth in perfect melody.

Then the bird is brought forth, and ever after he can sing that song in the

light. Thus God deals with His children. He has a song to teach us, and

when we have learned it amid the shadows of affliction we can sing it

ever afterward.”—Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 472.

Notice that the one who carries the bird into the darkness is the

master himself.

It is easy to understand that Satan causes pain, but would God

Himself actively take a part in guiding us into crucibles where we

experience confusion or hurt?

The Week at a Glance: What examples can you think of in

the Bible in which God Himself leads people into experiences that

He knows will include suffering? What do you think were the new

songs He wanted them to sing?