God is represented to us as the God of all patience and consolation, the God of peace, the God of hope, the God of grace, the God of comfort, all expressions denoting his relations to his people, and designed to reveal him to them as the all-sufficient and inexhaustible fountain of peace, patience, and comfort. As often as the word comfort is mentioned, and how often it is! our thoughts should be spontaneously turned from the petty, the misnamed comfort of earth, to the infinite Comforter. Do we know him as the God of all comfort?
He brought his people out of Egypt; removed them from the land of Goshen to the wilderness; from their homes, their hearths, their associations, their accustomed board, to a waste and howling wilderness, where no fields waved with plenty, where no fertilizing and gladdening streams were seen, where the sun smote them by day, and wild beasts prowled by night. Was he in this a God of comfort? Many of them thought not, they murmured against him. Yet their descendants through all generations, regarded this act of God as an amazing proof of his love: as indeed it was. In the absence of earthly comforts, the sufficiency of God came out gloriously. No people were ever more tenderly cared for than they were. He led them with the gentleness of a good shepherd. He would very soon have brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey, had they suffered him.
A daily devotional written by a Baptist Missionary to India, Reverend George Bowen (1816-1888) over 150 years ago.
George H. Bowen (30 April 1816 at Middlebury, Vermont – 5 February 1888 at Bombay, India) was an American missionary, newspaper man, linguist, and translator in India. He was known as "The White Saint of India" for his resemblance in manner and dress to the Hindu holy men.
God is represented to us as the God of all patience and consolation, the God of peace, the God of hope, the God of grace, the God of comfort, all expressions denoting his relations to his people, and designed to reveal him to them as the all-sufficient and inexhaustible fountain of peace, patience, and comfort. As often as the word comfort is mentioned, and how often it is! our thoughts should be spontaneously turned from the petty, the misnamed comfort of earth, to the infinite Comforter. Do we know him as the God of all comfort?
He brought his people out of Egypt; removed them from the land of Goshen to the wilderness; from their homes, their hearths, their associations, their accustomed board, to a waste and howling wilderness, where no fields waved with plenty, where no fertilizing and gladdening streams were seen, where the sun smote them by day, and wild beasts prowled by night. Was he in this a God of comfort? Many of them thought not, they murmured against him. Yet their descendants through all generations, regarded this act of God as an amazing proof of his love: as indeed it was. In the absence of earthly comforts, the sufficiency of God came out gloriously. No people were ever more tenderly cared for than they were. He led them with the gentleness of a good shepherd. He would very soon have brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey, had they suffered him.