Pilgrim
Portions
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Weeks
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And oh I how deep the peace when, nature gone, Thy Spirit fills the soul, strengthened with might, With love divine; and God as love is known! Lord I keep my soul, and guide my steps aright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Praise be for ever His who giveth songs by night.The most
important victory has often come when we have been most afraid of being
beaten; the brightest songs when an evil day has forced us to lean on
God. To me partings go
dreadfully deep. In spirit all is well. … Jesus is the bond which no
distance breaks and no nearness can give without Him, and which will,
blessed be His name, last for ever. He weans us in
every way from this world, that He may attach us to that one for which
He has created us anew. God’s hand is
always better than man’s; His seeming harshness even is better than the
world’s favour; the spring which guides it is always love, and love
directed by perfect wisdom, which we shall understand by and by. He makes His own
feel that His support is worth all the trouble in the word. The soul needs
daily the comfort of the blood. Broken vessels
are often better than whole ones to shew the sufficiency and grace of
Christ. His good hand is
upon us, even (and very particularly) in things that are painful. It
was not worth while to give a long history of the prosperity of Job,
but the Holy Spirit of God has given us details of all that took place
in his difficulties. It was worth while; and it is for the profit of
His own to the end of the age. It is there that the work of our God is
found. May He give us to have entire confidence in Him. Christianity was
sown in the tears of the Son of God. It is the travail of His soul
which He will see in that day. So in all service (and we must make up
our minds to it) where there is to be real blessing there must be the
sorrow of the world’s opposition, and even in the church the greater
sorrow of trials, of failure, and shortcoming, where we desire to see
Christ fully represented. Nature, of
course, shrinks from suffering: still, when it comes, if we are with
God, strength and joy are there. I have found in the little
difficulties I have had much more trial in expecting trial than when it
was there. When there I was calm and quiet and in no way uneasy.
Whereas I was when expecting it: Out of it, if it threatens you are
thinking of it. In it, you are looking out of it to the Lord. If the needed
work can be done without the sorrow, He will not send the sorrow. … His
love is far better than our will. Trust Him. … If He strikes, be
assured He will give more than He takes away. [The loss of] a
mother … is always an immense loss …. No one can be a mother but a
mother, but God can be everything to us, and towards us in all our
cares.” Pilgrim Portions - Meditations for the Day of Rest - Selected from the Writings, Hymns,
Letters, etc., of J. N. Darby SEDIN-Servicio Evangélico |
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