March 29
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeFriday after Seragesima Sunday
Trust in the living God. 1 Timothy 4:10.
FUNDAMENTAL principles must be laid to heart to prepare us against the force of temptation. One is to recognise our place as a creature. Our Lord exhibited this principle as a main safeguard in temptation. A creature's place, modes of action, and ways of life are dependent. He is to accept each state, to form each design, in dependence on an overruling will, which prescribes his place, his duty, his order of service, his means and exercise of life. To preserve this consciousness of continual dependence, and on each occasion of some seducing thought, some tempting object, to act in this consciousness, is one means of co-operation with the grace of God, Who has promised that He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, "but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it." Another principle to be firmly apprehended is trust in God for support while temptation lasts, and for relief from its pressure in due time. His word, His will, is all-sufficient, and is the hidden power of all outward means. If some fierce temptation seems to be at hand, cast thyself in prayer upon God,
Who can aid us, Who can break Teeth of envious foes, and make Hours of loss and pain succeed, Guiding safe each duteous deed,
for strength, and in the assurance of that strength grapple with the imagined evil, and then rise up to meet it in a loyal, brave adherence to the Divine promise; and when it comes, wait calmly with the uplifted cross in your hand, on your brow, the image of your Lord crucified in your heart, abide in the firm resolve, sustained by prayer, until it pass. Show thyself a good soldier of Christ Jesus, enduring hardness.