Jul 11
15
“I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
No human friend can say so. The closest and dearest of earthly links may be broken, yes! have been broken. Distance may part, time estrange, and the grave separate. Loving earthly looks may only greet you now in mute smiles from the portrait on the wall. But here is an unfainting, unvarying, unfailing Friend. Sorrowing one! amid the wreck of earthly joys which you may be even bewailing, here is a message sent from your God, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you!” Your gourd has withered, but He who gave it you remains! Surrender yourself to His disposal. He wishes to show you His present sufficiency for your happiness. As often your heart in silence and sadness weaves its plaintive lament, “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not!” think of Him who has promised to set “the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6) and to “give unto them a name and a place better than of sons or of daughters!” Alone! you are not alone! Turn in self-oblivion to Jesus. It is not, it cannot be “night,” if He, “the Sun of your soul,” be ever near! In the morning, He comes with the earliest beam that visits your chamber. When the curtains of night close around you, He, to whom “the darkness and the light are both alike,” is at your side! In the stillness of night, when in your wakeful moments, the visions of the departed flit before you like shadows on the wall, He, the sleepless Shepherd of Israel, is tending your couch, and whispering in your ear, “Fear not, for I am with you!”
Your experience may be that of Paul, “All forsook me!” But, like him, also, you will doubtless, be able to add in the extremity of your sorrow, “Nevertheless, The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me!” He can compensate by His own loving presence, for every earthly loss. Without the consciousness of His friendship and love, the smallest trial will crush you. With Him in your trial, supporting and sustaining you under it, (yes, coming in the place of those you mourn), you will have an infinite and inexhaustible portion, in the place of a finite and mutable one. Many a cloud is there without a Rainbow in Nature; but never in Grace. Every sorrow has its corresponding and counterpart Comfort. “In the multitude of the sorrows that I had in my heart, your comforts have refreshed my soul” (Psalm 94:19). If in the midnight of your grief your earthly sun appears to have set forever, an inner, but not less real sunshine, lights up your stricken heart. The stream of life may have been poisoned at its source, but blessed be His name if it has driven you to say, “All my springs are in YOU!” “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in Him!”
John MacDuff 1849