Deeper Life #219

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

—Psalm 46:1

RELIGIOUS LIFE IS BASED AND matured on implicit trust and then transfigured by love. That life can be simply described only by the spectator, not by the saint.

The wife of a murdered missionary in China told me of the blank, amazed agony of those excruciating days. “We did not pray, we did not feel. We were dazed with sorrow,” she said.

The townspeople showed this woman a golden lock of her little child’s hair. She was told that both husband and child were discovered murdered—beheaded and naked—in that godless Chinese town. Shattered and undone, the widow returned with her other little ones to Britain. She did not doubt God, but, she said, “He didn’t answer prayer. Oh, how many thousands prayed for my husband, that good, valued servant of God, but all to no avail.”

In those days of dull amazement, the people who drove her nearly wild with distress were those who knew the Scriptures well and went to great lengths to explain the “why” and “wherefore” of her troubles and suffering and grief. She said, “Oh, how I used to beat a tattoo on the floor with my foot while they chattered, crying in my heart, How long, O Lord, how long?

“Once, as I lay prostrate on the sofa, an elderly minister entered the room softly. The old minister, who knew my husband in the other glad days, did not speak, but he came gently over to me and, kissing me on the forehead, and went out. He never spoke. From that moment, my heart began to heal.”

Trust and love are the twin habits of victorious Christian living.

Prayer Thought: When I tend to dominate another Christian with my personal viewpoints, forgive me, Lord.

SUGGESTED READING: ¹God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. ²Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;³Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. ⁴There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. ⁵God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. ⁶The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. ⁷The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. ⁸Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. ⁹He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. ¹⁰Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. ¹¹The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

—Psalm 46