"The very hairs of your head are all numbered!" Matthew 10:30
What a promise is this! All that befalls you, to the very numbering of your hairs--is known to God!
Nothing can happen by accident or chance. Nothing can elude His inspection.
The fall of the forest leaf, the fluttering of the insect, the waving of the angel's wing, the annihilation of a world--all are equally noted by Him!
Man speaks of great things and small things--but God knows no such distinction. How especially comforting to think of this tender solicitude with reference to His own covenant people--that He metes out all their joys, and all their sorrows!
Every sweet and every bitter is ordained by Him. Even "wearisome nights" are "appointed." Not a pang I feel, not a tear I shed--but is known to Him. What are called "dark dealings," are the ordinations of undeviating faithfulness.
Man may err--his ways are often crooked; "but as for God--His way is perfect!" He puts my tears into His bottle. Every moment His everlasting arms are underneath and around me. He keeps me "as the apple of His eye." He "bears" me as a man bears his own son!
Do I look to the FUTURE? Is there much of uncertainty and mystery hanging over it? It may be, much foreboding of evil. Trust Him! All is marked out for me. Dangers will be averted; bewildering mazes will show themselves to be interlaced and interweaved with mercy. "He keeps the feet of His saints." Not a hair of their head will be touched.
He leads sometimes darkly, sometimes sorrowfully; most frequently by cross and circuitous ways, which we ourselves would not have chosen; but always wisely, always tenderly. With all its mazy windings and turnings, its roughness and ruggedness--the believer's is not only a right way, but the right way--the best which covenant love and wisdom could select.
"Nothing," says Jeremy Taylor, "does so establish the mind amid the rollings and turbulence of present things--as both a look above them and a look beyond them; above them--to the steady and loving hand by which they are ruled; and beyond them--to the sweet and beautiful end to which, by that hand, they will be brought."
"The Great Counselor," says Thomas Brooks, "puts clouds and darkness round about Him, bidding us follow at His beck through the cloud, promising an eternal and uninterrupted sunshine on the other side."
On that "other side" we shall see how every apparent rough blast has been hastening our boats nearer the desired haven.
Well may I commit the keeping of my soul to Jesus in well-doing--as unto a faithful Creator. He gave Himself for me.
This transcendent pledge of love--is the guarantee for the bestowment of every other needed blessing. Oh, blessed thought! my sorrows are numbered--by the Man of Sorrows. My tears are counted--by Him who shed first His tears, and then His blood for me!
He will impose no needless burden, and exact no unnecessary sacrifice. There was no unnecessary drop in the cup of His own sufferings; neither will there be in that of His people.
Living Simply— Yet Focused Look at the birds of the air….Consider the lilies of the field… MATTHEW 6:26, 28 “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin”— they simply are!...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
(James Smith, "Food for Hungry Souls")"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear--but now my eye sees You! Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes!" Job 42:5, 6.Job now saw God in another manner than he had ever done before. He...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Which Prayer? by Bob Jennings The doctors had given me one or two days, and it has now been 14, by the great mercy of God, as it is written, “Great are Your mercies, O Lord; revive me according to Your ordinances,” Psalm 119:156. But...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
The Believer's Daily Remembrancer Be sure your sin will find you out. - Numbers 32:23 Sin cannot be concealed; it meets the eye and affects the heart of God; and unless we find it out, confess it with sorrow, and forsake it with disgust, it will...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
[Psalm 51] The title has reference to a very sad story, that of David’s fall. But, though he fell, he was not utterly cast down, for God graciously upheld him and raised him up. 1. The sin which, in this psalm, he laments, was the folly and...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Be ready in the morning, and come... present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee(Exod. 34:2-3). The morning watch is essential. You must not face the day until you have faced God, nor look into the face...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
CONDEMNED Awaiting Execution A certain Prince traveling through France visited the military port of Toulon, where convicted criminals were held. The general, as a courtesy to the Prince’s rank, said he was welcome to set any of the...[ abbreviated | read entire ]
Everything is necessary--Nothing is necessary (John Newton)Everything is necessary, which God sends.Nothing is necessary, which God withholds.How happy are those . . . who can resign all to Him, who see His hand in every trying dispensation, and