“LORD, Thou hast been our dwelling place.” How far can we really say this? Is our home our dwelling-place? or, are our life-surroundings? Ah! it is a blessed thing in the presence of death, or life’s shifting scenes, yea, of broken hearts, to say, sighing, it may be, as we say it, “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place.”
Do not judge God harshly because of His ways with you, for “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” Take rather in your trials a sign of His favor.
IT is easy to utter the bare words, “Thy will be done,” but oh, what breakings of heart, what wrestlings of spirit, what humblings of soul before Him must occur ere our souls can really say to our Father Himself, “Thy will be done.”
Do you not hear the voice of Jesus saying to you in your sorrow, “It is I”? Let then these billows of affliction become your servants; let your sorrow but make fresh room in your heart for Himself. He is waiting to enter into your wounded heart, to be your Friend in a personal way hitherto unknown to you.
GOD does His own work in His own way. As the heaven is higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than ours. Do not seek to measure God, He is infinite; do not misjudge Him, He is love.
THESE rough winds of trial, these bitter tears of grief, will produce fair flowers for His heaven, if we are but tender in spirit before Him. Oh, to be of a broken spirit!
LET not the Lord hear your heart say, for your lips would not be thus rebellious, “Thou hast been unkind to me in sending this trial,” for He is love. He knows how to do the best thing for you in the best way for you, and that is just how He is acting on your behalf.
“HOPE thou in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him who is the health of thy countenance and thy God.”