A.J. Gordon noted that if you tear down a sparrow's nest the little bird will build again in the same place. However, if you pull it down several times, she will seek a new location a shelter higher up where it will be less vulnerable. Gordon then observed that Christians are not always so wise. They form dwelling places of happiness and hope in this temporal world, only to see them pulled down time after time. Yet after each brief interval of sighs and tears, they begin building all over again in the same way. They never realize that through their defeats the Lord is directing them to put their security in Him.

Samuel Rutherford once wrote, "If God had told me some time ago that he was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then had told me that he should begin by crippling me in arm or limb, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his purpose. And yet, how is his wisdom manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps, and then throwing open the shutter to let in the light of heaven."