“He knoweth the way that I take.” Job 23:10
"Believer! What a
glorious assurance! This way of thine –
this, it may be, a crooked, mysterious, tangled way—this way of trial and
tears. “He knoweth it.” The furnace seven times heated—He lighted
it. There is an Almighty Guide knowing
and directing our footsteps, whether it be to the bitter Marah pool, or to the
joy and refreshment of Elim.
"That way, dark to the Egyptians, has its pillar of cloud and
fire for His own Israel. The furnace is
hot; but not only can we trust the hand that kindles it, but we have the assurance
that the fires are lighted not to consume, but to refine; and that when the
refining process is completed (no sooner—no later) He brings His people forth
as gold.
"When they think Him least near, He is often nearest. “When my spirit was overwhelmed, then thou
knewest my path.”
"Do we know of One brighter than the brightest radiance of
the visible sun, visiting our chamber with the first waking beam of the
morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following us throughout the
day, knowing the way that we take?
"The world, in its cold vocabulary in the hour of adversity,
speaks of “Providence”—“the will of Providence”—“the strokes of Providence”. Providence!
What is that? [or—“luck”?]
"Why dethrone a living, directing God from the sovereignty of
His own earth? Why substitute an
inanimate, deathlike abstraction, in place of an acting, controlling, personal
Jehovah?
How would it take the sting from many a goading trial, to
see what Job saw (in his hour of aggravated woe, when every earthly hope lay
prostrate at His feet)—no hand but the Divine.
He saw that hand behind the gleaming sword of the Sabeans—he saw it
behind the lightning flash—he saw it giving wings to the careening tempest—he saw
it in the awful silence of his rifled home.
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord!”
Thus, seeing God in everything, his faith reached its climax
when this once powerful prince of the desert, seated on his bed of ashes, could
say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
--Macduff
photo courtesy of Thistledown Photography
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