THE GIVER AND THE TAKER The Lord
gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. Job 1 verse 21 noble posture, this, to kneel
and to adore, to see no hand but one. Sibeans, fire, whirlwind,
sword, are all overlooked. The patriarch Job recognizes
alone the Lord who gave and the Lord who has taken. What is the
cause of so much depression, needless sorrow, un-gospel murmuring
in our hours of trial? It was what Rutherford calls
our looking to the confused rollings of the wheels of second causes,
a refusal to rise to the height of the great argument, and confidently
to say, The will of the Lord be done. a refusal to hear his
voice, his own loving voice, mingling with the accents of
the rudest storm. It is I. Is there evil in the
city, and the Lord has not done it? Is there a bitter drop in
the cup, and the Lord has not mingled it? The Lord loves His
people too well to entrust their interest to any other. We are
but clay in the hand of the potter, vessels in the hand of the refiner
of silver. He meets out our portion. He appoints the bounds of our
habitation. The Lord God prepared the gourd. The Lord God prepared the worm. He is the author alike of mercies
and sorrows, of comforts and crosses. He breathes into our
nostrils the breath of life, and it is at His summons the
spirit returns to the God who gave it. O that we would seek
to regard our own lives, and the lives of those dear to us,
as alone! God, as the great proprietor,
who, when He sees fit, can revoke the grant, or curtail the lease
He gave! All mercies by Him bestowed,
by Him continued, by Him withheld! And how often does he take away
that he may himself enter the vacuum of the heart and fill
it with his own ineffable presence and love? No loss can compensate
for the lack of him, but he can compensate for all losses. Let us trust his love and faithfulness
as a taking as well as a giving God. Often our sense and sight
tempted to say, Not so, Lord! But faith, resting on the promise,
Can exult in this rainbow spanning the darkest cloud. Even so, Father,
for it seems good in your sight.