Mother, don't you love me? Susanna
Spurgeon, Words of Cheer and Comfort for Sick and Sorrowful
Souls, 1898. I have seen His ways, and will
heal him." Isaiah 57, 18. Here is one of the blessedly
incomprehensible paradoxes of God's love and mercy, which startles
us by its excess of compassionate grace. I have seen His ways,
and one would have thought that the next sentence must be, I
will punish Him, or at least, I will rebuke Him, But instead
of wrath, here is pardon. Pity makes room for love, and
in the place of bitterness, the Lord gives a blessing. I have
seen His ways, and will heal him. O wanderer, will not these
tender words cause you to return to your Lord? O stony heart,
will you not break at so loving a touch as this? O cold and half-dead
soul, will not such a divine cordial revive you? I have seen
His ways. What ways has God seen in you? Have they not been wicked, crooked,
perverse, your own ways, the ways of death? Have you not turned
aside from the path of life and refused to walk in all His way,
and chosen a stubborn way for yourself? Our hearts must give
a sad ascent to all these charges, as we bow humbly before Him and
say, You are acquainted with all my ways. We feel that such
knowledge of us on His part intensifies our wonder and gratitude at the
loving compassion with which He regards us. When I was a little
child, and had been troublesome to my mother, her reproof or
punishment would often be followed by my trembling question, Mother,
don't you love me? And my mother's reply invariably
was, Yes, I do love you, but I do not love your naughty ways. Poor mother! Doubtless I tried
her very much, and this was the best that grieved parental love
could say, but our heavenly father has sweeter choice of words than
these for his erring children. His love is divine, so He says,
I have seen His ways, and will heal him. O sweet pitifulness
of our God! O inexplicable tenderness! O love surpassing all earth's
loveliest affection! Do not our hard hearts yield
under the power of such compassion as this? God knows all our wickedness,
He has seen all our waywardness, yet His purpose towards us is
one of healing and pardon, and not of anger and estrangement. As I learn more of God, I get
so sick of my sin, indwelling sin, hard sin, that my soul welcomes
this word of the Lord as a condemned prisoner embraces a pardon, or
as a drowning man clutches the life-boy thrown out for his rescue. to be healed of the disease which
wastes us, to be delivered from the deadness and indifference
which enchain us, to have a perfect heart with the Lord our God,
and to walk before Him in a perfect way. This, I take it, is the
blessed prospect held out by this promise. Who will claim
its fulfillment at once? Who will take our gracious God
at His word and believingly receive the priceless blessing which
His love offers? O blessed Lord, Your forbearance
with us in the past has been a miracle of mercy. You have
seen so much in us which Your soul has abhorred, and yet You
come now with this gift of healing in Your hands, which means not
only pardon, but the power to be holy. Lord, we lift up our
empty, beseeching hands to Your full ones. Our own ways have
led us farther and farther from You. Now let your forgiving,
healing love draw us so close to you that we can never again
be among those who leave the paths of unrighteousness to walk
in the ways of darkness.