Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

July 21– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“Why must I go about mourning?”

—Psalm 42:9

Can you answer this question, believer? Do you wonder why you are so often mourning instead of rejoicing? Why yield to gloomy anticipations? Who told you that the night would never end in day? Who told you that the sea of circumstances would ebb out until there should be nothing left but long patches of mud and 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 tempests of despair?

Don’t you know that day follows night– that high tide follow low tide and that spring and summer succeed winter? Then be full of hope! Hope forever! For God does not and will not fail you. Don’t you know that your God loves you right in the middle of all this? Mountains are just as real in the dark as they are in the daylight, and God’s love is as true to you now as it was in your brightest moments. Good fathers don’t always discipline their children. Your Lord hates the rod as much as you do; He only cares to use it now and then for your lasting good.

You will yet climb Jacob’s ladder with the angels and behold him who sits at the top of it–your covenant God. In the splendors of eternity, you will forget the trials of time– or only remember them to bless the God who led you through them and accomplished your lasting good by them.

Come and sing in the middle of tribulation. Rejoice even while passing through the furnace. Make the wilderness blossom like the rose! Cause the desert to ring with exulting joys, for these light afflictions will soon be over, and then you will be eternally happy– “forever with the Lord.”

“Do not fear, for His arms are near. He does not change, and you are dear.

Only believe and thou will see that Christ is all in all to thee.” [M&E]