Mar 20
1
John MacDuff
“I will heal your backslidings.” —Hosea 14:4
Wandering again! And has He not left me to perish? Stumbling and
straying on the dark mountains, away from the Shepherd’s eye and the
Shepherd’s fold, shall He not leave the erring wanderer to the fruit of
his own ways, and his truant heart to go hopelessly onward in its career
of guilty estrangement? “My thoughts,” says God, “are not as your
thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” Man would say, “Go, perish!
ungrateful apostate!” God says, “Return, O backsliding children!” The
Shepherd will not, cannot allow those sheep to perish which He has
purchased with His own blood! How wondrous His forbearance towards
it!—tracking its guilty steps, and ceasing not the pursuit until He lays
the wanderer on His shoulders, and returns with it to His fold
rejoicing! My soul! why increase by farther departures your own distance
from the fold?—why lengthen the dreary road your gracious Shepherd has
to traverse in bringing you back? Do not delay your return! Do not
provoke His patience any longer! Do not venture farther on forbidden
ground! He waits with outstretched arms to welcome you once more to His
bosom. Be humble for the past, trust Him for the future. Think of your
former backslidings, and tremble—think of His patience, and be filled
with holy gratitude; think of His promised grace, “and take courage.”
Go and lay your icy heart upon
His flaming heart of love!