the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Golden Treasury
Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Matthew 28:20. I will be with him in trouble. Psalms 91:15. Therefore, be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them, Jeremiah 1:17.
O my soul, tell the Lord all thy complaint, as if he was visibly present, for he is actually present in all thy troubles, with his advice and help. Faith does not see God, yet he keeps and speaks to him, as if he saw him, and by his trials and assistance grows only stronger; consequently we have no reason to fear any distress. By afflictions God will not discourage us for believing; far from it, he rather encourages us to lay hold on his word by faith. And though we feel more sin and anguish of conscience in times of distress, it ought to make us more humble indeed, but at the same time to bring us closer to Christ, who blotteth out all our transgressions, and exercises and strengthens our faith. Therefore (as Luther observes) “even the sins of a Christian are for his good, and if he had no sin, he should not be so well off; for without the feeling of the sins and desperate corruptions of the heart in my conscience, I should never take so much of the power of the word of God." Neither would prayer flow so well, for the fire being removed from under a skillet, a congealing follows presently.
Cheerful we walk the desert through.
While faith inspires a heavenly ray;
The lions roar, and tempests blow,
And rocks and dangers fill the way.
