The Providence of God From The
Night Watches By John McDuff His Kingdom Rules Over All Psalm
103 Verse 19 Believer, try to see God in everything,
and everything in God. Lose your own will in His. Enter
on no pursuit, engage in no plan without Paul's prayer and condition,
the will of the Lord be done. How it would hollow prosperity
and sweeten adversity, thus in all things to follow like Israel,
the guiding pillar. At his bidding to pitch our tents,
at his bidding to depart. Each Providence has a voice,
if we would only hear it. It is a finger-post in the journey,
pointing us to the right way that we may go to the City of
Habitation. Often, what a mysterious volume
Providence is. It's every page full of dark
hieroglyphics, to which Earth can furnish no key. But faith
falls back on the assurance that the judge of all the earth must
do right. The father of all his people
cannot do wrong. To the common observer, the stars
in the nightly heavens are all confused masses, pursuing devious
and erratic courses. But, to the astronomer, each
has its allotted and prescribed pathway, and all are preserving
inviolately one universal law of harmony and order. It is faith's
loftiest prerogative, patiently to wait until that day of disclosures,
when page by page of the mysterious book will be unraveled, and when
the believer himself will endorse every page with, it is well. Providences may even seem to
be getting darker, merging like declining day into the shadows
of twilight. But, contrary to nature and to
the Christian's expectations, at evening time it shall be light. The gathering cloud will then
be seen to be fraught only with blessings, which will burst on
the believer's head. My soul be still and know that
He is God. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently
for Him. The mysterious why you have so
long been waiting for will soon be revealed. The long night watch
will soon terminate in the looked-for, longed-for morning. My God, my
Father, while I stray, Far from my home on life's rough way,
O teach me from my heart to say, Your will be done. Then when
on earth I breathe no more, The prayer often mixed with tears
before, I'll sing when on a happier shore, Your will be done. Blessed Lord, my pilgrimage path
is studded thick with Ebenezer's, testifying to your faithfulness
and mercy. I love to think of your manifold
gracious interpositions in the past. God sustaining me in trial. God supporting me in perplexity.
God rescue me when in temptation. God helping me when vain was
the help of man. When my foot slipped, your mercy,
O Lord, held me up. And shall I not take all your
goodness previously manifested as a pledge of faithfulness in
the future, in full confidence that you are a rich provider? I shall take no anxious thought
for the morrow, but repose in this covenant assurance of a
covenant-keeping God. I will never fail you nor forsake
you. I will lie down and sleep in
peace. For you alone, O Lord, make me
dwell in safety. Psalm 4 verse 8