. Thank God that He has veiled
the future. George Milne, Lessons for the
Christian's Daily Walk, 1859. Since no man knows the future,
who can tell him what is to come? Ecclesiastes 8.7. God's purposes
have all their seasons of fulfillment. His judgments each have their
time of visitation. Mapped out in clear perspective,
your every dispensation was fixed from everlasting in the eternal
mind of God. Your sunny seasons and your cloudy
days, Sorrow and pain, anxiety and lack, Your every loss of
property or friends, All was designed before you ever saw
the light. Trials may be in store for you,
the thoughts of which would harrow up your soul if you knew they
were coming. All this is known and ordained
by God. What it will be, or when it is
to come, He never tells to His creatures. As lightning strikes
for quickness, as wave comes after wave for frequency, so
may trials visit you. They are as uncertain as the
wind, yet fixed in divine purpose, and in performance sure, they
come. From day to day, from hour to
hour, who can foretell his future? Therefore, the misery of man
is great upon him. Rita, is this your feeling? Is, therefore, misery great on
you? Does it make you brood over possibilities,
alarmed at the contingency of woes? Would you rather that all
were known before, that you might be prepared for whatever trials
and tribulations come? Rather, thank God that He has
veiled the future, and deals out His dispensations one by
one. The time, the way, the kind,
the circumstances are all fixed by unerring wisdom and by boundless
love. It is thus that God is glorified,
His power felt, His sovereignty known, free from the trammels
of his creature's will, matchless in skill and failing in resources,
he thus proclaims his sovereign Godhead. The world may murmur,
but the saints submit to God's sovereign plan. The world may
tremble, but the saints are glad. In all their woes, they see a
Father's hand and a Savior's sympathy. They would not alter
it if they could. They meekly leave the future
to their God. the times and seasons, the what,
the when, the how, the why, they would not, dare not, know. But these things they do know,
that as their days, so their strength shall be. That He who
counts the stars, and calls them by their names, will heal the
brokenhearted and bind up their wounds, that divine comforts
shall keep pace with worldly sorrows, and that God's grace
will be sufficient for every time of need.