The Plain Path

Come, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the comfort of the Lord:  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice."  Ephesians  4:31

                  "Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path."  Psalm  27:11

     A convert in Africa was once heard to remark,  "The trail is hard and tangled, but I am not afraid, for there is a Man up ahead!"  Yes, our Saviour always goes before us for He is the Good Shepherd.  He is ever out in front, smoothing out the tomorrows, but it is our duty to follow in His way.  The plain path is not always the easy one, but it is the right one if He is leading.

     The story is told of an old Scotch woman who tramped about selling goods from house to house.  She was in the habit of tossing a stick into the air when she came to a crossroad and then taking the direction in which it pointed.  One day she was observed tossing the stick several times.  On being questioned, she said the road to the right looked so very dreary that she continued to toss the stick until it pointed to the left, for that seemed to her to be a much nicer way.  How often we go to God for guidance in the same fashion.  If His way seems dull we want to choose a brighter one, forgetting that He sees the end as well as the beginning.  Only as we seek to know His will and earnestly follow in His way will we find our steps plainly directed and our life's journey lying along the highway of peace and blessing.

     It is well for us to remember the words of Moody when he said,  "Every hard duty which lies in your path that you would rather not do, that will cost you pain, or struggle, or sore effort to do, has a hidden sweet in it.  Not to do it, at whatever cost, is to miss God's blessing.  Every heavy load that you are called to lift hides in itself some strange secret of strength."

     Study His Word, follow the Holy Spirit's leading, and you will find the plain path to be a highway of joy, but also a narrow way of holiness and self-denial.

"Bread For Each Day"

Patient Waiting On God

Come, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the comfort of the Lord:  "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice."  Ephesians  4:31

                                    "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage."  Psalm  27:14

     We are all so much in a hurry!  We live in an impatient age  Yet the best things that God has for us often take time to mature, and we must patiently wait on God at such occasions and not run before Him. Someone has said,  "Give God time, and even when the knife flashes in the air, the ram will be seen in the thicket.  Give God time, and even when Pharaoh's host is on Israel's heels, a path through the waters will be suddenly opened.  Give God time, and when the bed of the brook is dry, Elijah shall hear the Guiding Voice."

                                                            God's delays are not denials;
                                                                You will find Him true,
                                                            Working through the hardest trials
                                                                What is best for you.

     We are told to "run with patience" the race which is set before us.  George Matheson has a wise observation in regard to this.  He said,  "We commonly associate patience with lying down.  We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid.  Yet there is a patience which I believe to be harder - the patience which can run.  To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something which implies a strength greater still: it is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily tasks.  It is a Christ-like thing!  The hardest thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street."  To wait is hard, to do it with "good courage" is harder!

     Do not try to hasten the unfolding of God's bud of promise; you will only spoil the perfect flower.  "In patience possess your soul."

"Bread For Each Day"