March 21

"Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight."—Isaiah 40:4.

Is not my own life the wilderness in which the way of the Lord needs to be prepared?

There are hollows of neglect. Many are the duties I have left undone. Many are the opportunities I have missed and wasted. Many are the calls of the Master to which I have given no response. I have paid heed to the trivial, the fugitive, the inferior, and have forgotten the precious, the supreme, the essential. It is more than time to fill up the hollows and valleys.

There are high places of pride. I will not acknowledge my poverty. I will not humble my heart because of my sin. I will not rank myself among the destitute and derelict souls. I will not look to Jesus only and always. The ego, the I, is too big, too important, too conscious of its own worth, too unwilling to contemplate anyone else. These mountains and hills must be brought low.

There are crooked paths of sin. I have my bosom and favourite iniquities. I cling to them, and rejoice secretly in them, and refuse to part with them. I love them even though they are poisoning my nature and sapping my hope. The blight is creeping over me insidiously and stealthily. It is just as if fair, fine robes should cover a leper. Ah, what is crooked must be made straight.

Then the Lord will come—the Lord who will give me a view of my neglect and my pride and my sin tenfold profounder and tenfold painfuller than I can get anywhere else. But after His wounding, His healing will succeed. After the night of weeping follows the morning of joy—the morning which moves and marches and grows till it is glorious noon.