GOD'S PREPARATIONS

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him.  (Isaiah 64:4 NKJV)

This chapter is a casket of precious jewels. Let us look at some of them! What wonder that Paul loved that fourth verse, which he quotes in 1 Corinthians 2:9! Here we read that God works for those who wait for Him; to the apostle these words conveyed the thought that those who wait for Him must be those who love Him, and that God has thought out His prepared plan, so that they have only to believe in Him and go forward, to find that the path has been leveled for them to walk in. Those that love God are not afraid of the mountains that block their way; they know that God will make them flow down, and will reveal a pathway for their steps. The ancient men of this world had never heard with the ear, nor perceived with the eye, what our God will do for His own!

Often, as we walk the path of service, rejoicing that He loves us, and working such righteousness as we can, we meet God coming toward us, as the father meets his children, who have gone out to welcome him on his return from work. Or, in the hour which we dread, the hour of that operation, of that dreaded meeting, the hour of bereavement, as we walk along the path, we shall see a light approaching us, growing ever brighter. It is the heralding ray of God's approach. "You meet them that remember You in Your ways!"

It is in the midst of such loving kindness that we become most conscious of sin. All our righteousnesses, which passed muster in the sunlight, in His searching sight seem as filthy rags, and we realize how brief are our resolutions. "We all do fade as a leaf."

Perhaps we are most ashamed at our failure in the life of prayer. We do not stir up ourselves to take hold of God.

Here we must use special caution in speaking to others of those hidden passages of the soul, in which God our Father is pleased to meet with us and refresh us, lest we lead to take the higher path those who have not trod the lower. Each soul knows its own secret from the Lord, and we must live only as we have received. St. Bernard's motto was: "My secret to myself."

PRAYER

There is a secret place of rest,

God's saints alone may know;

Thou shalt not find it east nor west,

Though seeking to and fro;

A cell where Jesus is the door,

His love the only key;

Who enter will go out no more,

But there with Jesus be.

In His name I pray, Amen.

God's Daily Promise

 Promise #147:
Those who overcome will eat from the tree of life in paradise.

Revelation 2:7 (WEB)
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life,
which is in the Paradise of my God.