If we, beloved, did but value what we have in Christ, if we but took account of our condition in relation to the Lord, and not in relation to circumstances, we should always be happy beyond expression—our joy would be full. But it is in that point we fail. We love circumstances; we live in the power of them too much, in the light of the Lord's favor too little, and we are dull, and low, and half-hearted. Were it not so with us, the journeys in company with the cloud, checkered as they are, would find us and leave us still a happy people. For it is one Jesus throughout, whether it be the day of the blood (Exod. 12), of the song (Exod. 15), or of the cloud (Exod. 13); one and the same Jesus who was with us in the circumstances of human life, in the dying love on the cross, in the life of intercession in heaven, and who will give us His unchanged self in glory forever.
Content with beholding His face,
My all to His pleasure resigned,
No changes of season or place,
Would make any change in my mind.
While blest with a sense of His love,
A palace a toy would appear;
And prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.