“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed (praised and magnified in the moment and forevermore) be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly.” Job 1:21, 22″
Time flies by!” was the last phrase my most devoted late wife whispered, to which I added, “… faster than fleeting.” Her last word, more a kind and caring order, was “Rejoice!” – and while I long said I rejoiced more for her than I sorrowed for myself, that wasn’t true at all. It took me three years to stop calling her name before I called only on God. That’s precisely when He took charge, told me He had never left my side, said (or so I heard in my heart) “You and I are just getting started!” – and then blessed me again, and I trust He will never stop doing so, so long as I keep calling His name while we climb the next higher mountain … hand-in-hand with whomever loves the joy of journeying with God.
“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely and in truth.”Psalm 145:18
From “A Message For the Day” (1895) by James Russell Miller
“God’s love is the same in the brightness, and when the brightness fades into gloom. It is the same in joy, and when the joy turns to grief. It is the same when blessings are given, and when the blessings are recalled. It does not seem so to us; we easily believe that while God showers favors upon us He loves us; but when he gives sorrow, we almost feel that He doesn’t love us as before. Is this not also true when we are at odds with whomever we love and whomever loves us, when we look only through our own heart and miss the heart looking at us. Yet it may be that there are even richer blessings in the things which make us grieve than in those which give us gladness. We know at least that the same love sends both. That should be comfort to us. It is always love that comes from God, in whatsoever form or guise it comes. We need never doubt that this is true.” All since He promises …
“Am I a God at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Jeremiah 23:23
“So day by day, and step by step, sustain your failing strength;
From strength to strength, indeed, go on through all the journey’s length.
God bid you tarry now and then, forbear the weak complaint;
God’s leisure brings the weary rest, and cordial gives the faint.
God bids you love and labor, in places thick with thorn and brier;
But He will share the hardest task, until He calls you higher.
So take each disappointment, friend; ’tis at your Lord’s command!
Shall God’s appointment seem less good than what you had planned?”
Therefore, “I will set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.” Psalm 16:8
From “Morning By Morning” (1870) Charles H. Spurgeon
“Some Christians are prone to dwell on the downside of happenstance, and to dwell more on what they have gone through than upon what God had done for them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and help which God has vouchsafed them. They are often too busy casting their faults on others, those who they believe are greater to blame. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy state, will come forward joyously, and say, “I will speak, not about myself, but to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings: and He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. “ All because …
“The Lord has done great things for us! We are glad.” Psalm 126:3
“Such an abstract experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present. It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this, but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Savior, who overcomes these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond [a deep bog in John Bunyan’s allegory, “Pilgrim’s Progress], and have crept along the Valley of Humiliation [an empty and solitary place in the same allegory], but it would be equally wicked to forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not remained in them [unless we chose to], thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us “out into a wealthy place.” [Psalm 66:12] The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to God, [should always be] who has led us through all, and preserved us until now. Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life song, “He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”
“Whoever says he or she abides in Him ought [as a personal debt] to walk and conduct themselves in the same way He walked and conducted Himself.”
1 John 2:6
And thus the question, what part of our every day walk and our conduct does not reflect the way God, Who is right along our side, walks and conducts Himself? How can we be so close to Him and forget He is there, especially since …
“Time is flying by faster than fleeting!”
She and Me
