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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: November 11th

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HOPE AND FEAR

Fear not for I am with thee, and will bless thee. - Genesis 24:24

Faith is the one counterbalance of fear. There is none other for the deepest dreads that lie cold and paralyzing, though often dormant, in every human spirit; and that ought to lie there. If a man has not faith in God, in Christ, he ought to have fear. For there rise before him - solitary, helpless, inextricably caught into the meshes of this mysterious and awful system of things - a whole host of possible, or probable, or certain calamities; and what is he to do? stand there in the open, with the pelting of the pitiless storm coming down upon him? The man is an idiot if he is not afraid. And what is to calm those rational fears - the fear of wrath, of life, of death, of what lies beyond death? You cannot whistle them away. You cannot ignore them always. You cannot grapple with them in your own strength. ’’ Only believe," says the Comforter and the Courage-Bringer. The attitude of trust banishes dread, and nothing else will effectually and reasonably do it. I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear - Him who can slay and who judges. You have, and you cannot break, a connection with God. He ought to be one of two things: your ghastliest dread or your absolute trust. "Only believe." "Fear not." Believe not, then be afraid; for you have reason to be.

Men say, " Oh! keep your courage up," and they contribute no means to keep it up. Christ says, "Fear not, only believe," and gives to faith the courage which He enjoins. Like a child that never dreams of any mischief being able to reach it when the mother’s breast is beneath its head and the mother’s arms are round its little body, each of us may rest on Christ’s breast, and feel His arm round about us. Then we may smile at all that men call evils; and whether they are possible, or probable, or certain, we can look at them all and say, "Ah! I have circumvented you." "All things work together for good to them that" trust Christ. "Fear not: only believe."

But, on the other hand, from that simple faith will spring up also hope that cannot despair. "She shall be made whole," said the Master to Jairus. Irreversible disasters have no place in Christian experience. There are no irrevocable losses to him who trusts. There are no wounds that cannot be staunched, when we go to Him who has the balm and the bandage. Although it is true that dead faces do not smile again upon us until we get beyond earth’s darkness, it is also true that bonds broken may be knit in a finer fashion, if faith instead of sense weaves them together; and that in the great future we shall find that the true healing of those that vent away was not by deliverance from, but by passing through the death that emancipates from, the long disease of earthly life.

If we trust Christ, we may "hope perfectly." If we do not trust Him, our firmest hopes are as spiders’ webs that are swept away by a broom, and our deepest desires remain unfulfilled. " Only believe." Then, on the one side, " Fear not," and on the other side, " Hope ever."

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