by W S Plumer
Should anything be according to your mind? Your wealth, your health, your success, your reputation, your ease, your situation, all these deeply concern you. But are you fit to direct them? Suppose God should permit you to have your way, how much wealth would satisfy you? Would you put any bounds to your desires? Would you not drown yourself in destruction and perdition? Your health too, would you be fit to direct it? Without some pain, some infirmity, you would be tempted to atheism and forgetfulness of your mortality. Would it not be more difficult to be compelled to say when, how long and how severely you should be sick than to be sick all your life?
Now God kindly decides such questions and simply requires you to bear what He puts upon you. Is your situation hard and will you make it tenfold harder by repining at it? You desire ease, but can you be sure that it is best for you? Would you have a greater name in the world? It might be your downfall.
Is it in you to direct your steps? Have you shown sufficient wisdom to guide your own affairs? Is your knowledge not ignorance, your prudence folly, your strength weakness, your righteousness filthy rags! Have you any claim on God to be very careful not to cross your purposes! Your will is the will of a sinner.
God has sometimes, as it were, made an experiment on you. You have been urgent for something new, something different, and He has gratified you. “He gave them a king in His anger, and took him away in His wrath.” Israel did worse with a king than without one. You have often acted more wickedly when full than when empty. “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.”
Good Hezekiah greatly desired life, and God gave him 15 years more, but in that time he committed a great sin and left a great blot on his memory. A child was sick; his mother was almost frantic. She fasted, she fainted, she wept, she screamed. God restored her boy to health and, when he grew up, he committed great crimes, was put in prison, was executed and broke her heart.
Your mind is worth nothing when compared with God’s. He is fit to govern you and to rule all things. He knows what is best for you and how much you can bear, and when it will do you most good for you to be glad or to be sad. His grace is great, and so are His truth, power and wisdom. If He shall but direct, all things will go right. He is never deceived nor outwitted. He is gentle and kind. “He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.” His will is holy, just and good. He keeps mercy for thousands. His faithfulness is unto all generations.
You should be glad that He governs the universe, that He governs you. If you are wise, you will “trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed”. Learn to be content, in whatsoever state you are. Suppress the first risings of ambition, covetousness, self-will, restlessness, and the spirit of murmuring.
Believer, rest assured that “what thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter”. Incessantly pray, Lord, increase my faith. Treasure up in your heart the blessed promises of God. Diligently perform all known duties, especially duties growing out of your relationships in life. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Do not say that God has forgotten, or is a stranger that tarries for a night. Resist all unworthy thoughts of God, and leave results to Jehovah.
So you shall walk safely, and your burden shall be light; soon the Almighty shall call you away, and “the days of your mourning shall be ended”.
^1 Taken with editing from The Christian Treasury for 1852. The title of the article comes from Job 34:33.