Gold By Moonlight

"Hammer this truth out on the anvil of experience--this truth that the loving thoughts of God direct and perfect all that concerneth us' it will bear to be beaten out to the uttermost.  The pledged word of God to man is no puffball to break at a touch and scatter into dust.  It is iron.  It is gold, that most malleable of all metals.  It is more golden than gold.  It abideth imperishable forever.  If we wait till we have clear enough vision to see the expected end before we stay our mind upon Him who is our Strength, we shall miss an opportunity that will never come again: we shall never know the blessing of the unoffended.  Now is the time to say, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise," even though as we say the words there is no sense of exaltation.  "It is possible to gather gold, where it may be had, with moonlight," by which I understand something less helpful than daylight would be in the searching and finding of gold.  By moonlight, then, let us gather our gold."


And what manner of person wrote these words? "It is twenty-one years this year since I could sit up, and for nineteen years it has been this one position in bed; but isn't it wonderful that He enables us to triumph, and to rejoice in Him?"  Amy Carmichael began a home for girls destined to be abandoned or sold to temples in India for their ritual worships.  It is easy to imagine she would be needed on her feet, hugging these little ones, walking actively about and managing the affairs of the busy home.  Our Almighty Father had different thoughts concerning her, and in this she learned to praise Him.  This past weekend we saw a wonderful film about the modern-day Dohnavur Fellowship she began so long ago: it still thrives and throngs with happy and safe Indian children, in a beautiful setting amongst the mountains, and her influence is still strongly felt.  The girls she took in as newborns are now ancient women, but they remember her love and her mothering of them with ageless gratitude.


And who wrote the quote about gathering gold by moonlight?  The faithful Scottish minister Samuel Rutherford, in 1637, "out of much trouble of mind."  


As surely as the sun rose this morning, we serve the same loving Father as they, who can transform every anxiety and sorrow of our hearts into finest gold. 

--view opposite Samuel Rutherford's church ruins

--Ruins of Samuel Rutherford's church, Anwoth, Scotland