"Lo! I am with you alway, even to the end of the world," is not an idle—not an unfulfilled promise. He is not with us merely as a thought, but as a life. He gathers us up into His own being. He floods us with it. There is inspiration here, certainty for any duty, for any endurance. The faith, Christ with me, can make the poorest and the hardest life luminous, joyous, glorious.
One thing alone my heart requires,—one gleam of living light amid the ashes and the gloom; that into my cell of humiliation the flood of Divine pity should break, and keep aglow the openings of eternal hope, and sustain the hidden strength of an everlasting love.
It is when we unbosom ourselves to Him, and confide to Him all our cares and sorrows and temptations, that He walks with us, and abides with us, and opens to us the Scriptures concerning Himself—His dignity, His suitableness, His loveliness. His truth, His tenderness, His faithfulness, revealing Himself in us; causing our hearts to burn within us—to burn with love, gratitude, devotion, courage, joy—to burn with a celestial fire, which consumes all selfishness and sin, and glows, a pure, perennial flame, upon pure, living altars.
When the storms of trial lower,
When I feel temptation's power,
In the last and darkest hour,
Jesus, Saviour, be Thou nigh.
I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways!
