Yesterday I was reading a sweet little book, Diary and Selection of Hymns of Augustus Toplady, and was impressed by a note in his journal about God's providence. He was speaking of how God had been guiding him to begin ministering in a town called Broad-Hembury...

"There is one thing that pleases me much, about Broad-Hembury, and makes me hope for a blessing on the event, viz. that it was not, from first to last, of my own seeking: and every door, without any application of mine, has hitherto flown open, and all seems to point that way. As a good man somewhere says, "A believer never yet carved for himself, but he cut his own fingers."— The all-wise God, whose never failing providence ordereth every event, usually makes what we set our hearts upon unsatisfactory; and sweetens what we feared: bringing real evil, out of seeming good: and real good, out of seeming evil: to show us what short-sighted creatures we are, and to teach us to live by faith upon his blessed self."

Broadhembury