This is the secret of submission to the Lord. Let the Lord take everything, if that is his will. Do you lose your job? Don’t go to pieces. Trust him, pray to him. Don't be plunged down into despair. You lose your substance, your possessions? They are not everything. You lose your reputation? That may be very hard. You have been slandered? Don't be beside yourself. You lose loved ones? That is very difficult. You lose your health, perhaps, and when you are young maybe, and many comforts. No, if God in his providence removes things from us, then we submit to him. The secret of submission is faith. It is not easy. The last verses of 2 Corinthians 4 and the opening verse of chapter 5; they are the kind of passages we need to keep in mind. Faith is so important to you; it is your channel of communication with God. It is the means by which you appropriate all God's blessings. It is so vital to us. Something happens, that we cannot cope with. We are disappointed and we complain within ourselves. Maybe we would not complain to anyone else and they think we are holding up, but we complain within. Then we get anxious and worried, and maybe even to some extent go to pieces, and there is no provision of God for us in those circumstances. But if only we can pull ourselves together and rejoice in the Lord, and exercise faith and submit to him, making it a matter of earnest prayer, then, as we shall see in this very passage the Lord provides. That is what this example is all about.