the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 2
Psalms 125:2—The Lord is round about his people.
It is a beautiful conception. Around the chosen city the mountains stood like sentinels, leaving no part without its barrier. So is God around us; and this enables us to understand how his permissions may become his appointments. It is easy to accept pain and disappointment which come to us direct from his hand; but not so when they approach us from the plotting and malevolence of a Judas or Shimei. It is impossible, however, to arrive at a settled peace, so long as we make a distinction between the afflictions which come to us from the Divine, and those which visit us from the human; and, indeed, the distinction is untenable. For the assaults of our foes are at least permitted by God, and his permissions are his appointments.
This will become evident, if we clearly apprehend that God is round about us, as a rampart to the city, as an envelope to a letter, as the atmosphere to the configuration of our bodies. If then He chooses, He can pass off from us any arrow that might harm us; but if He opens his environing protection, so as to let it pass through to us, by the time it has traversed the atmosphere of his care, it has become his will for us. Put God between yourself and everything. Many put their anxieties between them and God, and see God as the sun through a fog; mind that you put God between yourself and the entire world of men and things.
In a city on the Continent the custodians keep the regalia without iron bars, on what seems to be an open table—but none would dare to touch one jewel, for all around a powerful stream of electricity is perpetually being poured. Invisible, but potent! Such is the encompassing presence of God.
