My Way, Your Way Susanna Spurgeon
Free Grace and Dying Love Make your way straight before my face. Psalm 5 8. Dear Father, this
cry is going up to you this morning from many a tried and perplexed
soul who is fearing to wander in the wilderness in a pathless
wasteland. Will you graciously bend down
your ear and listen to their prayer, and grant the desired
direction and guidance? Make your way straight. Dear
Lord, it is not that your ways are ever crooked or deviating,
but that my eyes are bent on seeing pleasant little by-paths,
where the road is not so rough or the walking so toilsome as
on the King's Highway. My way looks so enticing, so
easy, so agreeable to the flesh. Your way means self-denial, taking
up the cross, and the relinquishment of much that my carnal heart
desires. Now, dear Lord, hear my cry. Make your way straight before
my face. Compel me by the power of your
love and your example to go in the narrow road. Hedge up my
way with thorns, rather than that I should take a step out
of the way which you have laid down for me. What if sometimes
there are mists and fog so thick that I cannot see the path, tis
enough that you hold my hand and guide me in the darkness,
for walking with you in the gloom is far sweeter and safer than
walking alone in the sunlight. Dear Lord, give me grace to trust
You wholly, whatever may befall, yielding myself up to Your leading,
and leaning hard on You when dangers are in the path. Your
way for me has been marked out from all eternity, and it leads
directly to Yourself and home. Help me to keep my eyes fixed
on the joy that is set before me. and deliver me from the very
faintest desire to turn aside and linger in the flowery meadows
which have so often lured the feet of poor pilgrims into danger
and distress. Father, you have said, My ways
are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts. True,
dear Lord, but then you can uplift my thoughts to yours, and exalt
my ways until they reach the mountaintop of obedience to your
blessed will. Work this miracle for me this
day, O Lord. Use that sweet compulsion which
will delight my heart while it directs my steps. Make me to
run in the way of your commandments, and I shall run gladly. with
the blessed certainty that I shall reach the goal at last. Have
you not given me a monitor within, which strikes a gentle warning
note, when my feet turn but an instant from the straight way?
But, best of all, dearest Lord, May you yourself come with me
along life's road, today and every day. Let the abiding of
my soul in you be so real and constant, so true and tender,
that I may always be aware of your sweet presence, and never
take a single step apart from your supporting and delivering
hand.