Morning, April 29, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“You are my refuge in the day of disaster.” — Jeremiah 17:17

The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God’s Word, “Her ways are pleasant ways And all her paths are peace;” and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day,” yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer’s sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian experience; they have walked along the “green pastures” by the side of the “still waters,” but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, “Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen.” Oh! Do not say so, you who are walking in darkness. The best of God’s saints must drink the bitter drink; the dearest of his children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep from hanging his harp upon the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and frightened. He tempered the wind to not chill the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the mature and rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten boughs of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.