Correction in Measure from Thoughts
of God by John McDuff 1864 How precious are your thoughts unto
me, O God! I will correct you in measure. Jeremiah 30 verse 11 Here is a gracious and alleviating
thought of God in a season of trial. I will correct you, says
he. He does not disguise that he
will send affliction, that he will subject his own people to
chastisement. He knows them too well. He loves
them too well to allow the unbroken sunshine, the unfurrowed waveless
sea. The rough stone needs polishing.
The musical chord must be strained to give forth sweet sounds, notes
of harmony. But all is in measure. Amid our tossings, night and
day, on the sea of trial, how comforting the assurance When
my spirit was overwhelmed, then you knew my path. He suits the
yoke to the neck. He adapts his chastisements to
the characters and necessities, the strengths of his people.
All are meted out. All are weighed in the balances
of undeviating rectitude. There is no needless wrinkle
on any brow, no redundant or superfluous drop in the cup of
suffering. He who paints every flower and
molds every raindrop in the natural world, fashions every tear in
the dimmed eye, and imparts every delicate touch and shading to
grief. A human father may err. He may
wear a needless frown. He may punish with undue and
unnecessary severity. But thus says the Lord, your
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord your God, who teaches
you to profit, which leads you by the way that you should go.
Tried one, seek that this be the end of God's present dealing,
that he teaches you to profit. Too often in seasons of sorrow,
our great aim is to receive comfort. That is a limited and selfish
view. God has a higher end, a nobler
lesson. He disciplines us for our profit. Trial is a season for expecting
great blessings to ourselves and for greatly glorifying God.
It was from the bruised spices of old that the perfumed clouds
of incense arose. The fallen withered rose emits
the sweetest fragrance. The butterfly shuns it. The bee
passes it by. The very rays of sunshine can
gild it with no beauty. Yet, it loads the summer air
with richer perfume than when it hung in full-blown glory on
its present branch. where the lava stream once carried
desolation and ruin down the mountainside, vines are now seen
hanging their purple clusters. Just so, where the stream of
sorrow once swept distressingly down, are now clusters of heavenly
graces, the fruits of righteousness, to the glory and praise of God. I may not be able at times to
see the measure in his correction. There may, to the eye of sense,
appear nothing but a capricious exercise of sovereign power.
No chastening for the present may seem to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it will
yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Oh, let me joyfully
endorse every such affliction within. Even so, Father, because
this was your good pleasure, not my will, but may your will
be done. Your Heavenly Father already
knows all your needs. you