Morning By Morning #143

He led them by a straight way.

Psalm 107:7

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Change often leads an anxious believer to ask, “Why is this happening to me? ‘I looked for light, then came darkness’ (Job 30:26).’[I] hoped for peace…but there was only terror’ (Jer. 8:15). I said in my heart, ‘I will never be shaken. 0 LORD,…my mountain [will] stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed’ (Ps. 30:6 – 7). Only yesterday I could clearly see the way, but today my path is dark and my hopes are shrouded by clouds. Yesterday I could climb ‘to the top of Pisgah’ (Deut. 34:1), view the vast landscape, and rejoice with confidence in my future inheritance. Today my spirit has no hope, only fear; no joy, only great distress. Is this part of God’s plan for me? Is this really the way that God would have me travel to heaven?”

Yes, it is by this way. The obscuring of your faith, the darkness of your mind, the fading of your hope—all these are simply part of God’s method of maturing you for the great inheritance you will soon enter. These trials are designed to test and to strengthen your faith. They are waves that will wash you again upon the Rock and further establish you there. They are the winds that will transport your ship more swiftly toward the desired haven.

As the psalmist David wrote, may it be said of you: “He guided them to their desired haven” (Ps. 107:30). “Through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report” (2 Cor. 6:8), through plenty and poverty, through joy or distress, through persecution or peace, through and by all these things the life of your soul is maintained, and by each of them you are helped along your way.

Never think, dear believer, your sorrows are not in God’s plan—they are a necessary part of it. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Therefore, even learn to “consider it pure joy…whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2).

O let my trembling soul be still,

And wait Thy wise, Thy holy will!

I cannot, Lord, Thy purpose see,

Yet all is well since ruled by Thee.

John Bowring, 1792–1872

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

There is no better example of Christian suf-feringthan the apostle Paul. He wrote, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered…We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life” (2 Cor. 1:8). The humanity of the great apostle shines forth in this and should be an encouragement to us when we suffer.

Paul went on to say, “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death,” but he then quickly gives us the purpose for the suffering: “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9).

Yes, we have a God “who raises the dead”! Are you at the point of “despair[ing] even of life,” just as Paul once did? Then remember, our God “raises the dead” and “will not forsake his faithful ones” (Ps. 37:28).

“He has delivered us”—in the past; “he will deliver us”—in the future; and “he will continue to deliver us” (2 Cor. 1:10)—in the present. He can be trusted!