Gobat, the Christian missionary among the Druses, in the mountains of Lebanon and Syria, told many stories of God’s care over him. He had reserved passage on a ship that would take him to Malta in a few days. Then one day a messenger came to him from a chief of one of the tribes begging him to come, as the chief wished to talk with him about Jesus and the Christian religion. This was good news to the missionary, and he sent word saying that he would come and visit him in a few days. But he was taken sick, and could not travel for several days.
A second messenger then came with a more earnest invitation. Gobat told him he would go with him the next day, and he prepared for the journey. However, just as he was leaving his house, a letter came saying that the ship on which he was to sail was to leave the next day at noon. What was he to do? The messenger told him that if they set out at once he would be able to spend the night with the chief, and still reach the ship in time the next day. So Gobat decided to start at once.
The messenger and some of the Druses went along with them. Their journey lay through the forests and over the wild mountains. At one of the villages on the way they were delayed several hours. Then they lost their way, and before they found it again it began to get dark. The guide said that if they went on they could reach the village where the chief lived about midnight; but the path went winding around among frightful precipices and that it was a very dangerous one to travel in the dark. Gobat thought for a moment, wondering what they had better do; but his heart was burning with a desire to tell the chief about the Lord Jesus, so he said, “Well, let us trust in God, and go on.” So they started.
Presently, the moon came out. Then suddenly, at a place where the path was very narrow, and running close by the edge of a great precipice, they saw by the light of the moon a huge hyena lying right across the path. The Druses shouted, and threw stones at the beast. Then it jumped up and ran before them in the direction in which they were going. But now the Druses came to a stop. They said it was a saying among their people, that “The way a hyena goes is an unlucky way.” They wouldn’t go another step. Gobat tried to persuade them to go on, but in vain.
Then the messenger from the chief told them that if they would stop for the night at a neighboring village, they could still, by starting very early in the morning, have time for him to spend an hour with the chief, and be able to get back to the seacoast before the ship sailed. Mr. Gobat resolved to do so. However, as they were all very tired from the journey, instead of waking early in the morning, they overslept ‘till a late hour; and when they woke it was too late to go on. So, much against his will, Mr. Gobat was obliged to give up the visit to the chief. He had to hasten down the mountain to the coast, and he got there only just in time to board the ship. All through the voyage he reproached himself for having lest the opportunity of visiting the chief. And yet it seemed very strange that the hyena should have been permitted to come in his way when he was so near reaching the end of his journey.
While he was at Malta, he received a letter from a friend at his home in Lebanon, telling him that the chief had no desire to hear about Christ at all, but that the whole thing was a wicked plot which he had arranged to get the missionary into his power, and then to get rid of him. However, when the chief heard of the wonderful way in which the wicked plan had been hindered, he was convinced that the missionary was a servant of God He repented of his evil purpose and later he became the missionary’; true friend.
And so the Lord takes care of those who put their trust in Him.
“Whoso hearkens unto Me shall dwell safely.”
ML 08/25/1968