For Comfort in Bereavement
“Turn Thee unto nae, and have mercy upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted.” — Ps. xxv. 16.
O God, I come to Thee this morning, rejoicing in the simple but sublime assurance that “the Lord reigneth.” Thy judgments are often “a great deep.” May it be mine ever to own Thy sovereignty, and to rest satisfied with the assurance, “Be hath done all things well.”
It is indeed my oomfort to know that “my times” are not in my own hands, but in Thine. When in vain I seek to explain the mystery of Thy inscrutable doings, may I be enabled implicitly to trust Thine unswerving rectitude and faithfulness. The kindest and best of earthly parents may err — they may be betrayed into unnecessary harshness and severity — but Thou, O unerring Parent, wilt not, and canst not inflict one unneeded stroke. I can own Thy wisdom where I cannot discern it. I can trust the footsteps of love where I cannot trace them.
I look back with adoring wonder on all Thy marvellous dealings towards me in the past. “When my foot slipped. Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up.” How many tear-drops have been dried by Thee! How many sorrows have been soothed by Thee! How many dangers have been averted by Thee! Instead of wondering at my trials, I have rather reason to marvel at Thy forbearance. What are my heavkst afflictions in comparison with the deserts of sin? Lord, if they had been in proportion to my guilt, I could not have had one hour of joy.
Give me grace not only to bear all, and to endure all, but to glory in all which Thy chastening love sees meet to appoint. Affliction is Thine own appointed training-school
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for immortality. If I need such training Lord, withhold it not. Eather subject me to the severest ordeal of fatherly discipline, than leave me to vex Thee more with my guilty departures and backsliding. I will confide in the tenderness of Thy dealings — that Thou wilt conduct me by no rougher path than is really needful. Thou hast given Thy Son for me! After such a pledge of Thy love, may it never be mine to breathe one murmuring word.
For all in sorrow. Lord, I pray that they may take their sorrows to the “Man of sorrows.” May they be willing to forget their own light afflictions as they behold His bleeding wounds. Blessed God, what a source of joy to the whole family of the afflicted, that the exalted Head and elder brother has Himself tasted sorrow’s bitterest cup! Lord Jesus, Thou who hast suffered so much for me, grant that by patience and unrepining submission I may be enabled to “glorify thee in the fires.”
All my beloved friends I commit to Thy care. May the Lord be their everlasting portion. Forbid that I should have to mom-n in them what would be bitterer than the pang of all earthly bereavement — that they are bereft of Thy favor. Make them Thine, and in the midst of life’s vicissitudes and changes, may we all look forward to that better time, and that better world, where sorrow and sighing shall forever flee away. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
“CAUSE MB TO HEAR THY LOVING-KINDNESS IN THE MOENING, FOR IN THEE DO I TRUST.”