Reading: “And Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people: for the thing was done suddenly.”—2 Chronicles 29:36
Sweet thought, ever to keep in view, that it is the Lord that prepares the heart and gives answers to the tongue. How sudden, how unexpected, how unlooked-for, sometimes, are the visits of His grace! What mercy!
Is my heart cold, my mind barren and my frame lifeless? Then, dearest Lord, make me to rejoice, in warming my frozen affection, making fruitful my poor estate, and putting new life into my soul. All I want is a frame of mind best suited to Your glory. And what is that? Truly, that when I have nothing, feel nothing, can do nothing, am worse than nothing, that then, even then, I may know that I am rich in Christ amidst all my own bankruptcy.
This, dear Lord, is what I covet. And if you withhold all frames which might melt, or warm, or rejoice my own feelings, yet if my soul still hangs upon you notwithstanding all the difficulties, as a coat on a hanger, I might know my God and Jesus to be strong, that I might feel Him as my rock, that feels nothing of the ebbings and flowings of the sea around, whatever the tide of my fluctuating affections. He is strong and I am anchored in Him.
“The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.”—Martin Luther
Taken from The Poor Man’s Evening and Morning Portions by Rev. Robert Hawker, Works, Vol. 8; 1830. Edited by Aaron Dunlop for thinkgospel.com ©2013.
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