02.03. CHOICE EXCERPTS contd1

Our comforts and crosses are all from the same hand!

Your frequent sicknesses are not pleasant; but they are God’s mercies, for which we have reason to be thankful. Our comforts and crosses are all from the same hand! We have chastisement, only because we need it. I aim to leave you in the Lord’s hands. Would we not forget ourselves, if He did not seasonably remind us, what, where, and who we are?

In the case of some of your dear friends, for whom you grieve, you may see how it would have been with you—if His eye of love had not been fixed upon you from your birth. He prepared His dispensations, to withdraw you gradually from that life of vanity and wastefulness to which you would otherwise have been enslaved all your days. And He has been gently dealing with your heart for several years; leading you, if slowly, yet, I hope surely, nearer to Himself. How much of His ways has He shown you! And He has given you a heart to love those spiritual realities, to which you were once as little inclined as those whom you now pity!

~ ~ ~ ~ The common wearisome pursuit of the worldling

"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" Ecclesiastes 1:2

The common wearisome pursuit of the worldling is described in Scripture: "Why do you spend your money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?" Isaiah 55:2, "Many are saying—Who can show us anything good?" Psalms 4:6

Worldlings are wandering from object to object in quest of happiness, but are always frustrated by incessant and repeated disappointments. We would pity a person whom we see seeking some necessary thing day after day—in a place where we knew it was impossible to be found there. This is, however, the case with all people—until they come to Christ. Satisfaction is what they profess to aim at; and they turn over every stone (as we say), they try every expedient, to find lasting happiness—but in vain. Real satisfaction is only to be found in Jesus! When they come to Him, their wishes are fully answered and satisfied!

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst!" John 4:13-14