Evening, July 21, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Why am I walking around in tears?” — Psalm 42:9

Can you answer this, believer? Can you find any reason why you are mourning so often instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy expectations? Who told you that the night would never end in day? Who told you that the sea of circumstances would ebb out till there should be nothing left but many miles of the mud of horrible poverty? Who told you that the winter of your discontent would proceed from frost to frost, from snow, and ice, and hail, to deeper snow, and yet more heavy storms of despair? Don’t you know that day follows night, that flood comes after ebb, that spring and summer succeed winter? Then hope! Forever hope! For God doesn’t fail you! Don’t you know that your God loves you in the midst of all this? Mountains, even when hidden in darkness, are as real as in day, and God’s love is as true to you now as it was in your brightest moments. No father disciplines forever: your Lord hates the rod as much as you do; he only cares to use it for that same reason that should make you willing to receive it, namely, that it works for your lasting good. You shall yet climb Jacob’s ladder with the angels, and behold him who sits at the top of it–your covenant God. You shall still, amidst the splendors of eternity, forget the trials of time, or only remember them to bless the God who led you through them, and fashioned your lasting good by them. Come, sing in the midst of tribulation. Rejoice even while passing through the furnace. Make the wilderness to blossom like the rose! Cause the desert to ring with your triumphing joy, for these limited afflictions will soon be over, and then  — “forever with the Lord” — your happiness shall never fade.

“Faint not nor fear, his arms are near,

He changeth not, and thou art dear;

Only believe and thou shalt see,

That Christ is all in all to thee.”