the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." - Psalms 55:3.
David was not a man un-susceptible of fear; nor was he ashamed to confess that he could fear. Often he makes the confession. In this he was braver than many. But David stood firm, when a thousand brave men would have fled. Few shepherds would have stood by their sheep, on the approach of a bear; fewer, on the approach of a lion; but David, the stripling, did this: he met the bear and conquered it; he fought the lion and destroyed it. Afterward he met him before whom the whole Israelite army cowered and quailed. There were doubtless in that army the usual proportion of brave and gallant captains, and dauntless soldiers. David was a timid youth, in comparison with them. He had no self-confidence, no contempt of danger. He knew his own weakness. But he had one glorious resource. He had a mighty friend in God, and God was with him; with him when he met the bear and the lion; with him when he met Goliath.
Faith is true courage. It is the courage of discretion; the courage of man rather than that of the beast. Some go in battle like the war-horse, crying, "Aha, aha;" and with no other courage than that of the war-horse. They glory in their shame. Their courage is contempt of God. They disclaim his aid. Their own right arm is their divinity, a divinity that may be brought into dust by a few grains of powder. Thousands of the world’s heroes have taken hell by storm; carved their way through mighty obstacles and amid acclamations, to a citadel where they found Satan enthroned, and a passage to the bottomless abyss. Courage, without God, is a defiance of the Omnipotent one, and an invocation of his wrath. Paul, like David, speaks of himself as often in fear and trembling. He discourses largely of his own weakness. But like David he strengthened himself in the strength of God, and came off more than conqueror. The resolution expressed in the words of the text is equally a resolution to walk in the ways of God’s appointment. They that seek forbidden paths will find nothing for their faith to take hold of.
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