The Thoughts Of God

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"For this is what the high and lofty One says — He who lives forever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place — but also with him who is contrite and humble in spirit; to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite." — Isaiah 57:15

This verse may with reverence be termed, God's own description of His two dwelling-places. How amazing the contrast and disparity; inhabiting eternity, AND — the human bosom! The great of the earth associate with the great — kings have their abodes in palaces. One of God's palaces — is the lowly heart. Inconceivable is the distance of those stars whose light takes millions of years in traveling to our earth; and yet what is this? A mere span, compared to the distance which separates the creature from the Creator . We are "but of yesterday." Our days are as an handbreadth, "as a dream when one awakens!"

Eternity is the lifetime — the biography of the Almighty — ages and eras are the pages of the vast volume! If our distance from Him be great as creatures — it is greater still as sinners! Yet this high and lofty One, dwelling in the high and holy place, and whose name is Holy, condescends to be the inmate of the humble, contrite spirit, and to listen to its penitent sighs. Oh, unutterable, unimaginable stoop! The sovereign earthly king visiting the abode of poverty — is earth's illustrative picture and symbol of condescension. Yet what, after all, is this — but one perishable mortal, visiting another perishable mortal.

But here is Omnipotence — dwelling with weakness; Majesty — dwelling with nothingness; the Infinite — dwelling with the finite; Deity — dwelling with dust!

How this "precious thought" ennobles, elevates, consecrates the human soul. That home of earth is ever afterwards rendered illustrious, where royalty has sojourned. "If any man loves Me," says Jesus, "he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him."

What, O Lord, is man, that You are thus mindful of him — that You visit him? Prepare my heart for Your reception. Rend Your heavens and come down — fill its temple-courts with Your glory. May all its powers — sprinkled, like the sacred vessels of old, with the consecrating blood — be dedicated to Your service. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit — a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." Destroy every pedestal of pride . Make me humble — keep me humble. What have I to be proud of? Nothing. I am dependent continually on Your bounty. My existence — my health — my strength — my reason — are a loan from You the Great Proprietor, who can, in the twinkling of an eye, paralyze strength, dethrone reason, arrest the pulses of joyous life, and write upon all I have, "Ichabod, the glory has departed!"

Much more is this the case in spiritual things — I am a pensioner from hour to hour on redeeming grace and love! But for Jesus — I would be lost forever! It is lying low at the foot of His cross that I can learn how the Greatest of all Beings can be the most condescending of all. "I cease to wonder at anything," said a believer, "after the discovery of God's love to me in Christ!" "Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"I have loved you with an everlasting love! Therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you!" — Jeremiah 31:3

Here we have an everlasting thought of God, "in the beginning, before ever the earth was." Believer, travel back in imagination to the ages of the past. Before the trance of eternity was broken by any visible manifestation of power — before one temple was erected in space, before one angel waved his wing, or one note was heard of seraph's song — when God inhabited alone, these sublime solitudes — then there was a thought of you — and that thought was — Love!

Think of the sovereignty of that love. He says not, 'You have loved Me with your poor earthly love — therefore have I drawn you.' No, no! It is from nothing in you — no foreseen goodness on your part. Grace is the reason for all He has done, "God who is rich in mercy for His great love with which He loved us." "I will have mercy," is His own declaration — on whom I will have mercy!" "Jacob," (that cunning, scheming, crafty youth) " Jacob I loved — but Esau I hated!"

Manasseh, (that miserable man who has defiled his crown, dishonored his throne, and deluged Jerusalem with blood) "I have loved." That dying thief — fresh from a life of infamy, breathing out his blasphemies on a felon's cross, "I have loved." And why, let each of us ask, am I not a Cain or a Judas? Why am I not a wrecked and stranded vessel, like thousands before me? Here is the reason; "Yes, I have loved you ." Before you had one thought of Me, yes, when your thoughts were those of hatred, rebellion, and enmity — My thoughts towards you were thoughts of love!

And that Sovereign love, as it is from everlasting, so is it to everlasting — endless in duration — enduring as eternity. The love of the creature is but of yesterday — it may be gone tomorrow — dried like a summer-brook when most needed. But the love of God is fed from the glacier summits — the everlasting hills. We may estimate its intensity, when the Savior could utter regarding it such a prayer as this, "That the love with which You have loved Me — may be in them."

Oh, amid the often misgivings of my own doubting heart, with its frames and feelings as vacillating as the shifting sand, let me delight to ponder this precious thought — the long line of unbroken love — every link love — connecting the eternity that is past with the eternity to come — God thinking of me before the birth of time — even then mapping out all my future happiness and heavenly bliss — and standing now, with the hoarded love of that eternity in His heart, seeking therewith to "draw" me!

It is "the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus" — which is the moral gravitation-power of the cross, by which His true people have ever been drawn. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth — will draw all men unto Myself!" Draw me, Lord — and I will run after You. Show me Your loving-kindness thus enshrined and manifested in Your dear Son. Constrain me to love You in Him, because You have first loved, and so loved, me! "How priceless is Your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings."

A DIVINE CHALLENGE

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"This is what the Lord says: 'If you can break My covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed time — then my covenant with David my servant — and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me — can be broken, and David will no longer have a descendant to reign on his throne." — Jeremiah 33:20-21

It is remarkable how often God's revealed thoughts have for their theme, the immutability of His covenant ; as if the contemplation of His own inviolable faithfulness formed the mightiest of all topics of comfort and consolation for His believing people. Here He makes a solemn appeal to the constancy of the natural world — as a pledge and guarantee of His unchanging fidelity in spiritual things. Nothing seems so undeviating as the succession of day and night — the revolution of the seasons. The sun sinking at eventide in the golden west, and rising again like a giant refreshed. "While the earth remains," said the Great Creator over His own world, as it emerged of old from the waters of the Deluge, "seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

In our motto-verse, using human language as a vehicle of Divine thought, He makes the challenge, 'If you can forbid that sun to rise — if you can put drags on his burning chariot wheels, and prevent him from setting — if you can forbid the moon to hang her silver lamp from the vault of night, or pluck the stars from their silent thrones — if you can transpose summer's heat and winter's cold — if you can make seed-time belie its promise to expecting autumn — then — but not until then, shall I break My covenant with My chosen servants!'

"Just as the heavens cannot be measured and the foundation of the earth cannot be explored, so I will not consider casting them away forever for their sins. I, the Lord, have spoken!"

It is delightful thus to look around us on the steadfast and unvarying sequences in the material universe, and to regard them as sacraments of grace — silent witnesses for the inviolability of God's word and promise. Nature , in her majestic constancy, becomes a temple filled with monuments, each bearing the inscription, "God who cannot lie!" The God of nature and the God of grace are one — and He who for the last six thousand years has given such proof of unswerving faithfulness in the one economy — (for "they continue this day according to Your ordinances") — will be equally faithful in fulfilling the more permanent provisions of the other. "Look up to the skies above, and gaze down on the earth beneath. For the skies will disappear like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a piece of clothing. The people of the earth will die like flies — but My salvation lasts forever. My righteous rule will never end!"

It is an "everlasting covenant, well-ordered in all things, and sure." How can it be otherwise, seeing it is founded on the work and righteousness of Jehovah-Jesus, Immanuel — God with us! Before one provision of that covenant can fail, immutability must first become mutable — and God Himself cease to be God! Standing on this "sure foundation," we can boldly utter the challenge, "Who is he that condemns?" Not God the Father — for "He has justified." Not Christ — for "He has died." Not angels in the heights above, not devils in the depths beneath.

Universal nature , in the ceaseless hymn of her own constancy, proclaims and celebrates our covenant security and safety. Her four great evangelists , Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter — endorse the utterances of the inspired volume. In the mouth of the two witnesses, "Day and Night," every word is established. Thus, with reference not only to the glory and wisdom and power of God — but to His purpose and promise of salvation for His people, "Day unto day utters speech; and night unto night shows knowledge." "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of His heart through all generations!"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish — but have everlasting life!" — John 3:16

Here is what Cyprian calls "an ocean of thought — in a drop of language!" Who can sound the depths of this "thought of God?" It will form the theme and the mystery of eternity. Manifold and glorious are His thoughts regarding His people. But this is the center and focus of all — around which all the others cluster. It is the jewel of which all the others are the setting — the thought of thoughts — the gift of gifts. We may well say, "How precious!"

There is no measuring that love; it defies all human computation. Christ Himself, in speaking of it, can only intimate its indescribableness. He puts the plumbline into the hand — but He does not attempt to gauge or fathom — all He can say of the precious thought and the precious love is, "God SO loved!" And His redeemed Church in Heaven will forever stoop over the edge of the precipice and exclaim, in the contemplation of the profound abyss, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us!" "Your thoughts are very deep!"

Think of that love in the past — a love so great as to put into the lips of the Eternal Father the mysterious summons, "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, and against the Man who is My Fellow — smite the Shepherd!" The same Almighty Being is represented elsewhere as looking around — scanning and surveying the needs of a doomed and dying world: "I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold — therefore My own arm brought salvation unto Me!" The alternative, "condemn — or not condemn," was before the Infinite mind. BUT "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it — but to save it."

Think of that love when it culminated thus in its triumph on the cross . When God's "precious thoughts," had their solemn revealing and interpreter in "the precious blood of Christ." Think of that moment when Infinite paternal love laid His Isaac on the altar, and the unsheathed sword descended on the priceless Sacrifice! Think of it, too, as a love evoked by rebels — a love manifested towards the guilty and undeserving, and hell-deserving . History's noblest deed and record of love — is in the self devotion of one generous heathen, Pylades, who forfeited his life to save his friend — but "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!"

"You have not yet seen," says a great writer and profound thinker, "the greatest gift of all — the HEART of God, the love of His heart — the heart of His love. And will He, in very deed, show us that? Yes, unveil that cross — and see! It was His only mode of showing us His heart! It is Infinite Love laboring to reveal itself — agonizing to utter the fullness of infinite love. Apart from that act — the boundless ocean of love would have remained forever shut up and concealed in the heart of God! But now it has found an ocean-channel. Beyond this He cannot go. Once and forever the proof has been given — God is love."

"My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the Lord. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways — and My thoughts higher than your thoughts!"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God'? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God — the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary — and His understanding no one can fathom!" — Isaiah 40:27-28

Here is a thought of desponding man — in contrast with a "thought of God." No, not only so; it is an ungrateful thought of God's own people. It is "Jacob," "Israel," — who are guilty of these unworthy complainings. They question the rectitude of His dispensations. "Surely," is the language of their doubting hearts, "He cannot be cognizant of our situation — our trials — our temptations — our perplexities — otherwise He would long before now have come to our relief! Surely the Lord does not see my troubles, and God refuses to hear my case!"

So thought Gideon in his hour of faithless despondency, when Israel had been ground down for seven years by the oppression of the Midianites, "If the Lord is with us — why then is all this befallen us?"

So thought David , in the wilds of Gilead, when, a broken-hearted exile, he repeated through his anguished tears, the challenge of his enemies, who continually said unto him, "Where is your God?"

So thought Asaph in his moments of guilty unbelief, when he saw the wicked prospering and the righteous suffering. Misjudging and misinterpreting the divine procedure, "his steps had well-near slipped;" he "remembered God and was troubled;" and amid the misery of unbelieving thoughts, exclaimed, "Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?"

So thought Martha and Mary in the extremity of their grief, after they had sent prayer and messenger in vain, and were still left unsupported in their agony. They had ever fondly trusted that mighty Heart of divine tenderness . But how could they trust it now, in these mysterious moments of blank despair? If He had indeed 'loved' them and their lost one — why could Jesus, "remain two days still in the same place where He was?" Could there be kindness — could there be anything but forgetfulness in this strange prolonged absence? Surely, was their hasty, unworthy surmise, 'our way is hidden from Him, He has passed over and overlooked our case and our cause!' No, O desponding ones! "My thoughts are not your thoughts!" "I am the Lord; I do not change!" You have fainted and grown weary of Me — but I, the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth — have not fainted, and never can faint or grow weary of you!

Go, Gideon , on your deliverance mission, trusting in My sure word; and out of weakness you shall be made strong, become valiant in fight, and turn to flight the armies of your enemy!

Go, fainting pilgrim of Gilead, take down your harp from the willows — sing the Lord's song even in that strange land, for He will soon turn your mourning into dancing, take off your sackcloth, and gird you with gladness!

Go, mourning psalmist of the olden temple, "call to remembrance your song in the night," "commune with your own heart," and thus rebuke your peevish murmurings, "This is my infirmity — but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High God."

Go, mourning sisters of Bethany, go forth to meet the lingering steps of 'the Brother born for adversity.' Dry these unkind, distrustful tears! There are wise, though yet undeveloped reasons — which both you and the Church will yet learn to appreciate, for these two long days of unsupported sorrow. Imagine anything but this: "Your God has forsaken you, and your Lord has forgotten you!"

Believer, trust the divine faithfulness in the dark! Trust His loving heart — where sight and sense fail to trace His mysterious hand! Think especially of the mighty God — yet Brother-man, who has left this last promise legacy, "Surely, I am with you always!" He ever lives — and ever loves! He is the true Moses on the mount, whose hands never grow heavy. Oh, amid the fainting and failing of what may be dearest to you in earthly love; may this be your sublime solace amid all trials and all changes: "The Lord is the everlasting God — the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary — and His understanding no one can fathom!" "You will keep in perfect peace — all who trust in You, whose thoughts are fixed on You!"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"As a father pities his children — so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are but dust!" — Psalm 103:13-14

What feelings on earth are to be compared, in depth and intensity, to those that link a parent to his children? Has some member of his family been unjustly wronged? Many a man would willingly submit to unmerited injury and ridicule — bear in silence the tongue of calumny and slander, and receive in silence the arrows of unkindness — who could not rest thus unmoved under the affront or stigma attempted to be fastened on his child.

Or does the parent see his child in suffering? He could himself bear pain with comparative composure; but when he sees slow, torturing disease ploughing its furrows on the young cheek, and dimming the luster of the young eye — the iron enters into his soul; he would gladly even risk his own life — were that of his loved one endangered. Many a father has stood by an early grave, and said, through anguished tears, "I wish that I could have died — rather than you!"

Behold, O believer, in the loving, pitying thoughts; and tender pitying deeds of the earthly parent — a picture and symbol of God's thoughts and God's love to you! No, more — He identifies Himself with the sufferings and wrongs of His children. Injure them — and you injure Him! He who touches them — touches the apple of His eye. He says, as David said to Abiathar, "Abide with me, for he who seeks your life, seeks my life — but with me you shall be in safeguard."

When and where does this pitying love of God begin? "And when he was yet a great way off — his father saw him!" God's thoughts of pity were upon us — when we had no thought of pity on ourselves. And at this hour, too, is He pitying us — in our weakness, in our sorrows, in our temptations, in our difficulties, in our perplexities. Many an earthly father can make only a little allowance for the weakness and feebleness of his offspring. Not so our heavenly Father. "He remembers that we are but dust." When Job was greatly perplexed and downcast by the bitter reflections of his adversaries, this was his comfort, "But He knows the way that I take!"

See how these same thoughts of pitying love, like the ivy clasping the battered ruin, cling even around His wayward, backsliding children, "Is not Israel still My son, My darling child? I had to punish him — but I still love him. I long for him and surely will have mercy on him." Oh, blessed assurance, this great Being loves me, pities me — pities me and loves me even in the midst of my truant forgetfulness, ungrateful wandering — and continues to call me His "darling child." I have in Him a love in which fatherhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, are all combined!

Arise, go to your Father! He is waiting and willing to welcome you to His embrace. He asks elsewhere, in a passage which touchingly describes His thoughts (His loving, paternal thoughts) at work, "How shall I put you among the children?" The gospel plan of salvation has answered that question — solved that Divine problem of parental love. Jesus has opened a way of access to the heavenly household — and made us heirs to all these precious thoughts of a Father's heart! Seated under Calvary's cross — we can exclaim in grateful transport, "How great is the love which the Father has lavished on us — that we should be called children of God! And that is what we really are!"

COMFORT FOR THE BEREAVED

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"I have seen his ways — and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners." — Isaiah 57:18

We have here the utterance of God's thoughts to the bereft mourner. He who looked down of old on bondaged Israel, and thus unlocked the thoughts of His heart, "I know their sorrows;" He who, in a later age, watched from the mountainside the frail bark tossed in the midst of the lake, and hastened to the rescue of faithless disciples — says to each poor afflicted one, 'My thoughts are upon you! I have appointed your trial. I have decreed that early, or that unlooked-for grave. Let faith trust Me in this dark hour, when fainting human nature may fail to comprehend the mystery of My dealings.'

The successive clauses of this verse form a beautiful gradation. God "sees," He "heals," He "leads," He "comforts!"

God SEES. He knows all my case, my character, my circumstances. He alone can judge, as to the "needs-be" of trial. He has some wise reason for His discipline.

God HEALS. He comes with the balm of His own heavenly consolation. When the wave of sorrow has answered the end for which it was sent, He says, "Thus far shall you go — and no farther!"

God LEADS. He does not inflict the heavy blow — and then forsake. He does not leave the shorn lamb to the un-tempered winds of trial. "The Lord shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought" — with guidance and provision, the two pilgrim necessities — and that, too, "in drought," — when the world's provisions fail!

God COMFORTS. The mother's love for her child is manifested, not at the moment only when it receives some severe injury — but in the subsequent nights of patient, tender care, and unwearying watchfulness. "As one whom his mother comforts — so," says God, "will I comfort you!"

In the hour of sorrowing bereavement, many a precious revelation is made of a before unknown or hidden God . In wrestling like Jacob with the covenant Angel, the soul is often brought to feel for the first time, in that struggle-hour, His touch — the consciousness of a Presence, before dimly recognized, is now felt. Like 'Israel,' we may go 'halting' to our graves. But the place of affliction is called by us to the last, "Peniel;" for there "we saw God face to face;" and from that hour we have journeyed on, sorrowful — yet always rejoicing.

Let us cleave to this thought of sustaining comfort. Other thoughts of other hearts may have perished. Others that used to think of us, and to interchange thoughts with us — may now only greet us with mute smiles from their portraits on the wall . The parent's arms that comforted us — may be moldering in the dust. The brook that once sang along its joyous music — may be silent and still — we gaze upon a dry and waterless channel. But 'Jehovah lives!' Towards the mourner there is ONE heart ever throbbing with thoughts of unalterable love! Weeping one! you can say, in the midst even of intensest loneliness, and through anguished tears, "As for me, I am poor and needy — but You my God, are thinking about me right now! You are my Helper and my Savior. Do not delay, O my God."

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember your sins!" — Isaiah 43:25

"I — yes, I alone" — the Great, the Pure, the Holy, the Righteous God! Surely if there is one way more than another, in which God's thoughts are not as man's thoughts, it is this — pardoning the rebel , welcoming the undeserving , forgiving and forgetting! How we remember the sins and the failings of others! How we harbor the recollection of ingratitude or unkindness. We say, "I forgive — but I cannot forget ." God does both . Forgiveness is with Him no effort; it is a delight, "The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake."

"I — yes, I alone" — the God who for weeks and months, and, it may be, for years, we have been wearying with our iniquities, whose Book of Remembrance is crowded with the record of our guilt; "I — yes, I alone" — the very Being who has registered that guilt — is ready to take the recording pen and erase the pages thus blotted with transgression!

How can He thus forgive? How can the God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity — cancel the handwriting that is against us in these volumes of transgression, so that they are remembered no more? It is through the atoning work of Jesus. "The Son of man has power to forgive sins." He shed His precious blood that He might have a right to say, "Your sins, which are many — are all forgiven!" What a complete erasure! Crimson sins, scarlet sins; sins against grace, love, warning, and privilege — see them all cast into the depths of the sea, never again to be washed on shore!

"Whatever our guiltiness is," says Rutherford, "yet when it falls into the sea of God's mercy — it is but like a drop of blood fallen into the great ocean." The ancients said there was nothing so pure as snow . But we know of something purer — a human soul washed in the blood of Christ!

What is the impelling MOTIVE with God in so wondrous a forgiveness as this? It is, it can be — nothing He sees in us. No repentance, however sincere; no good works, however imposing or splendid. It is His own free sovereign grace! "For My own sake!" "Thus says the Lord God, I do not do this for your sakes, O house of Israel; but for My holy Name's sake." If He had meted out retribution in proportion to our deserts, His thoughts towards us must have been of evil, not of peace — our blood would, long before now, have been mingled with our sacrifices. But He is God, and not man. "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." "O Israel you have destroyed yourself — but in Me is your help found."

Most wondrous chapter in the volume of God's thoughts — His full, free, unconditional, everlasting forgiveness of the guilty and undeserving! All the most gigantic thoughts of man, look poor and shabby after this. God, the just God — yet the Savior — just, in justifying the ungodly .

Lord! I accept the gracious overture of pardon. I joyfully repose on this thought of Your forgiving mercy. "My debt is very great, neither can I pay anything thereof myself. But I trust in the riches and graciousness of my Surety. Let Him free me, who became surety for me; who has taken my debt upon Himself." (John Gerhard) Yes, He has taken my debt! Think of God, not only willing to blot out and bury in oblivion a guilty past — but hear Him giving the assurance that the legion-sins are already cancelled. The debt has been discharged — the wages paid. He makes it an argument for immediate return and acceptance, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins! Return unto Me — for I have redeemed you!" What can we say about such wonderful things as these? "If God is for us — who can ever be against us?"

ALMIGHTY GUIDANCE

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go; I will guide you with My eye." — Psalm 32:8

No more precious assurance can I have, than this — that I am under the constant, loving guidance of my heavenly Father — that He appoints the bounds of my habitation, and overrules all events for my good — that my whole life is a plan arranged by Him. Every apparent little contingency, as well as every momentous turn and crisis-hour — forms part of that plan! "God examines every path a man takes." "A man's heart devises his way — but the Lord directs his steps."

"I will instruct you and teach you." How patiently does this almighty Preceptor train, and with what infinite wisdom and tenderness does He adapt His varied teachings to the needs and requirements of His people! It is "line upon line;" — or if need be, cross upon cross — trial upon trial. Or it may be that startling providences are no longer required — the gentle indications of His will are enough, "I will guide you with My eye ." The earthquake — the hurricane — the wind — the fire, may now have fulfilled their mission. "The still, small voice" is now sufficient.

And HOW does He promise to teach and to guide? Not in the way that we would like to go — the way of our own choosing — but "the way which you shall go." Often we would decide on pursuing the sunny highway. But God says, 'the rough mountain-track is best for you!' Often we would, like Israel, take the near and smooth road to Canaan by the land of the Philistines. But God's pillar-cloud decides otherwise, and takes us by a circuitous route "by the way of the wilderness." Often we would prefer, like the disciples at sea of Tiberias, the safe path by the seashore, so as to avoid the gathering storm, "for the wind is contrary." But God says, "No!" He constrains us to get into the ship.

"He led them by the right path — to go to a city where they could live!" It is not for us to question His plans. He led His people of old — He leads them still — by the right path . There is a day coming when, in the words of Augustine, "both vessel and cargo safe, and not a hair of our heads hurt — we reach the haven of our desire," we shall own the wisdom of every earthly lesson, the "needs-be" of every wave in the troubled sea!

The gardener has occasionally to subject his plants to apparently rough usage — cutting, lopping, mutilating; reducing them to unsightly shapes — before they burst into flower. Summer, however, before long, vindicates the wisdom of his treatment, in its clusters of varied fragrance and beauty. So also, at times, does our heavenly Gardener see fit to use His pruning-knife. But be assured there is not one superfluous or redundant lopping . We shall understand and acknowledge an infinitely wise necessity for all — when the plant has unfolded itself into the full flower, bathed in the tints and diffusing the fragrance of Heaven.

Believer, go up and on your way — rejoicing in the teaching and guidance of unerring Wisdom! "I will guide you with My eye." The sleepless eye of Israel's un-slumbering Shepherd is upon you by day and by night — in sickness and in health — in joy and in sorrow — in life and in death! "Does not He who weighs the heart, perceive it? Does not He who guards your life, know it?" "But the Lord watches over those who fear Him, those who rely on His unfailing love."

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"Do not be afraid, worm Jacob ; I will help you! says the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." — Isaiah 41:14

"Worm Jacob!" What weakness, insignificance, unworthiness! Yet it is this helpless, groveling "worm," which occupies 'the thoughts of God' — receives His sympathy, and has the assurance of His almighty aid.

Believer, beaten down it may be, with a great fight of affliction, or trembling under a sense of your unworthiness and guilt — mourning the coldness of your faith, the lukewarmness of your love, the frequency of your backslidings, the fitfulness of your best purposes, and the feebleness of your best services — your God draws near to you — He remembers that though you are a worm — still you are "worm Jacob," — His own beloved, covenant one; and He tells that the thoughts which He thinks towards you, are "thoughts of peace, and not of evil."

Mark His message of comfort, "Do not be afraid!" Mark His promise, "I will help you!" The guarantee which He gives for the fulfillment of that promise, is His own great name; "says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." "By whom shall Jacob arise?" says the prophet Amos, "for he is small." We have here an answer. He shall rise by the might of His covenant God — the God who has given JESUS as a pledge for the bestowment of all other blessings.

"I Myself will help you!" Yes, poor, weak, trembling one, "Jehovah", "your Redeemer", "the Holy One of Israel" — in other words, Omnipotence, Love, Righteousness, are all embarked on your side, and pledged for your salvation!

He loves to draw near to His people in the extremity of their weakness. "He will not break the bruised reed ; He will not quench the smoking flax ." Man would do so. Man would often crush the writhing worm under his feet — bid the trembling penitent away; but He whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, says, "Neither do I condemn you."

"He shall deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him that has no helper." "All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him! Revere Him, all you descendants of Israel! For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him — but has listened to his cry for help!" Listen to the testimony of one such lowly suppliant, "I called upon Your name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon. You drew near in the day that I called upon You — You said, Do not be afraid!"

Seek to be humble. It is to the humble, that God 'gives grace.' He perfects strength in weakness. "When the high cedars ," says Philip Henry, "tumble down, the shrubs are safe." "When I am weak," says the great apostle, "then am I strong." Worm Jacob, the halting cripple of Peniel, was made strong in the moment of his apparent weakness. He received a new name, "as a prince, he had power with God, and prevailed."

Be it mine to go in the strength of the Lord God. "I will help you!" is enough for all the emergencies of the present; and all the contingencies of an untried, and, it may be, a dark future . "But happy are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God."

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"I form the light — and create darkness; I make peace — and create evil! I the LORD do all these things!" — Isaiah 45:7

What a sad world this would be — were it governed by Fate! Were its blended lights and shadows, its joys and sorrows — the result of capricious accident — or blind and wayward chance! How blessed to think that each separate occurrence which befalls me — is "a thought of God" — the fulfillment of His own immutable purpose!

Is it the material world? It is He who "forms the light — and creates darkness " — who appoints the sun and moon for their seasons — who gives to the sea its decree — who watches the sparrow in its fall — who tends the lily in the field — and who paints the tiniest flower that blossoms in the meadow.

Is it the moral world? All events are predetermined and prearranged by Him! "I make peace — and create evil!" Both prosperity and adversity are His appointment. The Lord who of old prepared Jonah's shade-plant, prepared also the worm . He gives — and He takes away . He molds every tear. He "puts them into His bottle." He knows them all, counts them all, treasures them all. Not one of them falls unbidden — unnoted.

"The lot is cast into the lap — but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." Over every occurrence in nature and in providence He writes, "I the Lord do all these things!" True, His thoughts are often mysterious, and His ways are past finding out. We are led at times, amid the bewildering mazes of His providential dealings , to exclaim, "O Lord, how great are Your works, and Your thoughts are very deep!" Be it ours to defer our verdict — until their full development .

We cannot envision the thoughts and intents of the architect or engineer in the first clearing of the ground for the foundation of some gigantic structure. The uninitiated eye can discover nothing but piles of unshapely rubbish — a chaos of confusion. But gradually, as week by week passes — we see his thoughts molding themselves into visible and substantial shapes of order and beauty; and when the edifice at last stands before us complete, we discern that all which was mystery and confusion at first — was a necessary part and portion of the undertaking.

So is it, at present, regarding the mysterious dealings of God. Often, in vain, do we try to comprehend the purposes of the Almighty Architect, amid the dust and debris of the earthly foundations. Let us wait patiently, until we gaze on the finished structure of eternity.

Oh, blessed assurance — 'precious thought' of God — that the loom of our life is in the hands of the Great Designer — that it is He who is interweaving the threads of our existence: the light — and the dark, the acknowledged good — and the apparent evil. The chain of what is erroneously called "destiny," is in His keeping. He knows its every connecting link — He has forged each one on His own anvil! Man's purposes have failed, and are ever liable to fail — his brightest anticipations may be thwarted; his best-laid schemes may be frustrated.

Life is often a retrospect of crushed hopes — the bright rainbow-hues of morning, passing in its afternoon into damp mist and drizzling rain. "Many are the thoughts in a man's heart," (knowing no fulfillment nor fruition) "but the counsel of the Lord — that shall stand." "From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can oppose what I do. No one can reverse My actions!" "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" Revelation 19:6

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty! He will save , He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing!" — Zephaniah 3:17

Wondrous 'thought of God!' — God resting in His love — His love not for unsinning angels — but for fallen, redeemed man! The idea is, the joy and satisfaction of one reposing after the completion of some arduous work. God rested at creation — He rejoiced with joy over a new-born world. But this was a feeble type of His delightful rest and rejoicing over the new-born ransomed soul.

There is a beautiful sequence in the verse. It rises to a climax. First, God "saves." Then He "rejoices." Then He "rests" (the contemplative rest of joy). Then, as if this were not enough, He rejoices over His people "with singing." Like an earthly warrior — first, the victory; then, the shout of joy; then the calm survey of the field of conquest; then the hymn of triumph.

He "rests in His love!" With God, love is a disposition. People may, from impulse, perform an act of love. Momentary feeling and emotion, even in the case of a naturally unloving heart, may prompt to some deed of generosity and kindness. But God's nature and His name being love , with Him there can be nothing fitful, arbitrary, capricious. His love is no way-ward, inconstant stream — but a deep, quiet, everflowing, overflowing river!

A word or a look, may alienate and estrange your best earthly friend. But the Friend of friends is immutable. Oh, how intense must that love be for the guilty and the lost, which is thus spoken of by the lips of Divine filial love, "therefore," says Jesus, "does My Father love Me, because I lay down My life for the sheep."

"He will rejoice over you with singing!" "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride — so shall your God rejoice over you." The returning prodigal is met, not only with the tear and the grasp of parental forgiveness; but high festival is kept within these paternal halls, "It is fit that we should make merry and be glad." The gladdest countenance in that scene of joy, is not that of the haggard wanderer — but that of the rejoicing father, exulting over his lost and found son!

"There is joy in Heaven among the angels of God, over one sinner that repents" — but it is a joy which, though spreading through the concentric ranks, and reaching to the very circumference of glory, is deepest in the center . It begins at the throne — the keynote of that song is struck by God Himself! So also in the parable of the lost sheep. See how Christ speaks, as if He had all the joy to Himself of that wanderer's return; "He lays it on his shoulders rejoicing ," and says, "Rejoice with me!" The joy of His people is part of His own, "These things have I spoken unto you — that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

"God is in the midst of you;" "He is mighty ;" "He will save ." What more does any poor sinner need than this — a present God, a mighty God, a Savior God? Able to save, willing to save — even more — delighting to save! "The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him." "Since you are precious and honored in My sight — and because I love you!"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"My grace is sufficient for you: for My strength is made perfect in weakness." — 2 Corinthians 12:9

The apostle's 'thoughts' were desponding ones — when his God whispered in his ear this precious thought of comfort. A thorn in the flesh — a messenger from Satan — had been sent to buffet him! We know not what this thorn may have been. God purposely leaves it unidentified, that each may make an individual application to his own particular case and circumstances.

But who, in their diversified and chequered experience, has not to tell of some similar trial? Some dead fly in life's otherwise fragrant ointment — some sorrow which casts a softened shadow over perhaps an otherwise sunny path! Infirm health; worldly loss; domestic problems; family bereavement; the discharge of arduous and painful duty; the treachery of tried and trusted friends; the sting of wounded pride or disappointed ambition; the fierce struggle with inward corruption and un-mortified sin; the scorpion-dart of a violated and accusing conscience! And the world all the time, perhaps little knowing or dreaming of the inward conflict, the life-long trial, the fountain of tears, though "a fountain sealed."

As the apostle earnestly entreated that his thorn might be taken away — so may you, reader, also have prayed fervently and long — that your trial might be averted, your sorrow mitigated, if not removed! You doubtless imagine that it would be far better — were this messenger of Satan, this spirit of evil, exorcized and cast out! But here again, God's thoughts are often not our thoughts!

What was the answer to the apostle's earnest petition, when "three times he pleaded with the Lord to take it away." It was not granting the removal of the trial — but it was better . It was the promise of grace to bear it. "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you!" It was enough; he asked no more. He may have demurred at first to the strange answer — so unlike what he expected , so unlike what he wished . But he was led before long, not only joyfully to acquiesce — but heartily to own and acknowledge the higher and better wisdom of the Divine procedure, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me!"

This, too, may be God's dealings with you . Often and again, it may be, have you taken your hidden sorrow — the burdening secret of your heart — laid it on the mercy-seat, and with importunate tears implored that it might be taken away! Yet the sorrow still remains! But, nevertheless, remember: the prayer is not unanswered. It has been answered — not perhaps according to your thoughts or desires — but according to the better thoughts and purposes of your heavenly Father!

The thorn is still left to pierce and lacerate — but strength has been given to bear it! The trial, be what it may, has taught you, as it did Paul, the lesson of your own weakness — and your dependence on Divine aid. It has been a needful drag on your chariot wheels — a needful clipping of your wings — lest, like the great apostle, "you should be exalted above measure." Who can complain of the heaviest of sorrows — if they have thus been the means alike of revealing to us our own weakness — and of endearing to us the all-sufficient grace of a Savior God?

Blessed, comforting assurance: "in all time of our need," that God will deal out the requisite grace. Seated by us like a kind physician, with His hand on our pulse — He will watch our weakness, and accommodate the divine supply — to our several needs and circumstances. He will not allow the thorn to pierce too far — He will not allow the temptation to go beyond what we are able to endure. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation." "As your day — so shall your strength be."

Grace "sufficient" will be given — sufficient for every emergency. His everlasting arms are ever lower than our troubles! I will go forth bearing my cross, fortified with the assurance, and breathing the prayer, "Summon your might, O God. Display your power, O God, as You have in the past!" "Do not be afraid — for I am with you. Do not be dismayed — for I am your God! I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with My victorious right hand!"

"How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"

"For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed! says the LORD who has mercy on you." — Isaiah 54:10

The mountains are the most stable objects in the material world — nature's noblest emblem of immutability. But these have "change" written upon their stupendous brows. Time is furrowing them with wrinkles — and wearing down their colossal forms. Atmospheric influences are subjecting them to continual waste and decay. The snowy-crowned Alp is included in the doom, "All these things shall be dissolved!"

But, more enduring than mountains of granite — is God's kindness . Whatever is dearest to us may change — and sooner or later must perish. The gourd we have lovingly nurtured and tended — may wither — like Jonah's, just when most needed! The gold we have taken a life-time to amass — may be forfeited by one adverse turn of capricious fortune! The brook which for long years has sung its joyful way at our side — may be dried in its channel. The "staff and beautiful rod" which blossomed in our household — may be broken, and strewed in withered leaves at our feet! The cistern — hewn with such pains — may be fractured by a stroke of the chisel while hewing it, and lie scattered on the ground in fragments of shapeless ruin!

But God's love is immutable and immovable! Mark the succession of golden links, "precious thoughts," in our motto-verse. He speaks of the "covenant," "the covenant of peace," — of "My peace" — a covenant not to be "removed." These are glorious guarantees . Mountains, rocks, forests — all may decay and will decay; but "the Lord lives", "His ye