A Gracious Remembrance From Thoughts
of God by John McDuff 1864 How precious are your thoughts unto
me, O God! I remember the devotion of your
youth, how as a bride you loved me, and how you followed me in
the wilderness. Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 2. Backslider, listen to this divine
retrospect. A precious and encouraging thought
regarding your past. This may be the present sorrowful
feeling and confession of your heart. I am not what once I was. Once I loved my God. I can remember
hallowed seasons of communion and fellowship, of which, alas,
the memory is now all that remains. I once was enabled to live, somewhat
at least, under the sovereignty of that lofty motive, walking
so as to please him. But I have forsaken and forgotten
my first love. I have to mourn over a treacherous
wandering heart. I am conscious of deterioration,
spiritual declension, self-indulged sin, permitted wordliness, and
some subtle shape or form has crept in, blunted the fine edge
of conscience, dulled the sensibilities of my spiritual nature, dimmed
my soul to its grander destinies, and left me to muse in my better
moments, in sadness and tears, over the wreck of former joys.
Are you prone to feel, in this desponding contrast between past
devotedness and present faithlessness, as if the Lord's countenance
and favor must be withdrawn from you forever, that there can be
nothing but the bitterness of an ever sadder and more hopeless
estrangement? No. No, he remembers that time,
the devotion of your youth, these early vows, that early pledged
love, the vows so poorly kept, the love so strangely diminished.
While the pages of your own memory are all blurred by sin, he remembers
the earlier entries and inscriptions of devotedness that stood on
these yet unblotted pages. He remembers the efforts. It
may be the feeble efforts you made in his service. The secret
struggles in the closet. Fervent prayers and recorded
vows of the sanctuary. The testimony born for him in
the world. How tenderly and lovingly does
God deal with His backsliding children. He has no delight in
remembering their sin. He loves to exhume, rather from
a forgotten past, anything which He sees in them worthy of commendation. even, notwithstanding much, it
may be of present frailty, inconsistency, and self-righteousness. He speaks
of my servant Job. He speaks of Lot as that righteous
man. See, in the case of Peter, what
the Lord remembers, when the erring disciple is confronted
on the lake shore, it is not the faithless hours of his apostolic
manhood, but it is devotion of his youth. Not Jerusalem, with
its recent Palace Hall, but Bethsaida, Capernaum, Caesarea Philippi,
and many other scenes and associations of hallowed devoted love. And so with us, He is willing
in our case too to forget the long intervening season of coldness
and distance and alienation if we offer the promise of renewed
obedience. Yes, fearful one, take courage. Cast your eye back on those gracious
seasons when the candle of the Lord did shine and when by His
light you walked through darkness. On that time, which the lapse
of years may have partially dimmed or obliterated, the loving thoughts
of your God delight to rest. You may have banished me, he
seems to say, from your thoughts, but I have not banished you from
mine. I remember the devotion of your
youth. Now, let your unfailing love
comfort me, just as you promised me, your servant.