Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: December 30th

I wait for the Lord; my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. - Psalms 130:5.

NOTHING can be more interesting than to see a good man calm and patient while in a very trying and distracted condition. Such a one is a witness for God, by showing the reality, efficiency, and excellency of the religion he professes; David, therefore, in his troubles, had recourse to God. Waiting includes not only seeking, but expecting; and waiting-patiently waiting-for the Lord implies that God does not always immediately come to release and relieve his people. “While he is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,” yet he may not come to our relief at the time we expected him, and therefore we feel disappointed. But he is not bound to observe our prescribed rules; and he must know, in his infinite wisdom, that we have often very improperly fixed the times and seasons for him to manifest himself. We may always depend upon him, and that in his own good time and way he will listen to our prayer and interfere on our behalf. He hath said, “He that believeth shall not make haste.”

If the Lord appears to tarry, we are to wait for him. The husbandman does not go out and murmur at the clouds, or blame the weather; he well knows that there must be a season between sowing and reaping, and that the various influences of nature, the rough and the smooth, the sunshine and the storm, all operate and combine to produce the final result; therefore he “hath long patience for it.” “Be ye,” says the apostle, “therefore patient.” It is frequently very trying to flesh and blood to wait for God, and it is necessary for great patience to be exercised by us. But let us ever remember we have no claim upon God; and let us also think how long we have kept him waiting for us, how long he stood knocking at the door of our hearts, week after week and month after month, before we arose up and opened unto him.

Then it becomes us to exercise full confidence in God, and to feel assured that he will fulfil all his promises; that his delays will be advantageous, and that his is the best time; therefore it is said, “Blessed are all they that wait for him.” They are blessed, for they are preserved from those painful reflections that others feel who disobey him, and who charge him foolishly and unkindly, before he explains himself; they are preserved from having recourse to sinful and improper expedients to extricate themselves from present difficulties, and to obtain relief. Had some Christians let God alone, (so to speak,) to bring about his purposes in his own time and way, how many stripes and how many storms in providence had they escaped!

In nothing can we honour God more than by confiding in him. And God says, “Them that honour me I will honour.”

Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness. - Deuteronomy 8:2.

OBSERVE the passage they were to review. They were to remember all the way which the Lord their God had led them through the wilderness. Not that everything in their journey was equally important and interesting; this could not be-but all had been under the appointment and discipline of God, and all would be rendered profitable. All their stations were distinctly known; they had memorials of them all. Some of them had been rendered very famous by new names imposed as significant of some instances of the Divine conduct, or of their miscarriage.

It must have been affecting to them to look back upon some parts of their journey. Elim, where there were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm-trees-the waters of Mara, whose bitterness had been made sweet, the Red Sea, the mountains of Horeb and Sinai, and to recollect the marvellous and striking scenes which had been exhibited to them.

Now it is the same as to us. Some things in life are very eventful; they have had an amazing influence on our character, our reputation, our happiness, our usefulness; and in the review of our life, these are the things which we are peculiarly to dwell upon, and then, if we are wise, nothing will be found unimprovable. If, indeed, we lived in “a fatherless world” as Jeremy Taylor has expressed it, if we were under the empire of chance, if we were abandoned to ourselves, it would be a very little in life that would be worth our review.

But since all is under the administration of our heavenly Father, since we know the very hairs of our head are all numbered, since we must be compelled to say-

“If light attends the course I run,

’Tis he provides those rays,

And ’tis his hand that hides my sun,

If darkness cloud my days;”

and since he does all things well, he that is wise will, in the review of his life observe these things: he will see the hand of God directing with infinite wisdom and paternal goodness every circumstance in his lot, and thus will he be taught the loving-kindness of the Lord.

Besides, those parts of our life that may seem to be the most insignificant, are often found to have had suspended upon them relations and consequences the most momentous. That a company of Ishmaelites, for example, should pass by a particular place, at a certain hour, trading down to Egypt, was no very remarkable thing, and yet Joseph, when he came to look back upon his life, would see all the mighty interests connected with his humiliation, and his advancement quivering upon that little point. And then the period to be reviewed. “Forty years.”

This was a considerable period as to length, but, oh, what did it contain! oh, what displays of Deity! What proofs of his power, his holiness, his patience, his mercy, and his truth. And oh, what developments of their folly, their impatience, their unbelief and disobedience, and we should endeavour to realize the progression of our time, so as to be impressed by its daily, weekly, monthly, and annual lapses. These periods are so many little breaks in the continual eddyings of the current of life, the murmurs of which conscience may chance to hear, and at the close of another year we are called upon to observe how gradually and insensibly it has passed away.