George H. Morrison's Old And Beautiful Devotions

[nChrist]

January 21

Daily Defilements - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

"Mine enemies would daily swallow me up." Psa_56:2

There are some enemies which only come to us at interludes. But you will note that it was different with the psalmist. It was not rarely and briefly that his enemies fell upon him to destroy him. What inspired his bitter cry was that every day he lived he was in peril: "Mine enemies would daily swallow me up." He never woke with a heart that was at peace saying, "Thank God all is well today." At any moment he might hear the ringing of the battle cry. And it was that which almost broke his heart and drove him in a wild despair to God and robbed him of all power to be happy.

Now who the psalmist's chief enemy was we don't know, but if we don't know his, at least we know our own. The deadliest enemy we have to fight is sin. That is the power bent on our destruction which we must conquer somehow or be crushed. There are certain sins, like certain enemies, that give us times of rest between their onsets. There are certain temptations which, being foiled today, may not return until a year has passed. But there are others, like the psalmist's foes, whose peculiar characteristic is just this, that every morning when we wake up, we dread them, and every day we live we have to battle with them.

I suppose there is no one reading this who cannot remember a day when he fell terribly. Have we not all had hours when we defied the right and broke down every barrier of conscience? My brother and sister, in whose heart such hours are living in all their bitterness, remember that there are other sins than these. When a soldier is out on a campaign, there may come a day when he is wounded. The bullet has found him and his rifle drops and he cries for water as they lift him, but remember that every day that he marches, and many a day there is no thought of wounds, there is the gathering of dust upon his arms. Let that dust gather, and in a little while you would scarcely recognize him as a soldier. Let that dust gather, and in a week or two his very rifle will be a useless instrument.

And so with us too as we take up the spiritual warfare; there may come a day when we are badly wounded, but always and every day there is the defilement of the march. There is the dust and soil of the everyday road. There are temptations that reach us not like a storm, but like the gentle falling of the rain.

Although seemingly minor and insignificant, these sins of everyday rob us of our present joy and peace. It is these which write lines upon the brow and bring the look of uneasiness into the eye. You may destroy the lute by breaking it in two, and there are homes and hearts ruined like that. But a little crack within the lute makes all the music mute, and so is it with our little sins.

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[nChrist]

Daily Defilements - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Blocked Channels

Some fifty or more years ago there came into our country a new weed. It was a pond weed living in the water, and so it found its way to our canals, and it was a little and inconspicuous thing to which nobody except the botanists gave heed. Would you believe it, that in thirty years our canals were being choked by it? It blocked the channel, delayed the passing ships, threatened the very existence of the waterway. And it was far more difficult than ice to deal with for ice can be broken with sufficient pressure, but all the pressure in the world was powerless against this living and compliant tangle.

Brothers and sisters, you may be sure of this, that true peace demands an open channel, an unobstructed way to God if one is to walk with music in his heart. And I say that no tragic fall so blocks the channel between earth and heaven as do these daily little and unnoticed sins that grow and gather in the passing days.

It does not take a wound in the eye to make the eye a source of misery. Lodge only a grain of sand within its orb, and all the pleasure of vision vanishes. And so for multitudes who are not reprobate, who have been saved by Christ, there is no joy, no peace, no song, because of the intrusion of the little sins.

I know a meadow not five miles away where thirty years ago the trees were beautiful, and men would travel to see them in the summer for there were few elms like them by the Clyde. And now half of these elms are dead, and for the others summer is a mockery. And it wasn't a storm that did it: it was the daily pollution of our Babylon. They are still rooted in the finest soil, and you too may be rooted in Christ Jesus. No one would question that your deepest life is hid with Christ in God. But even so rooted, you may miss the joy of your salvation, and miss it because every day you live you are subtly and insensibly defiled.

Little Sins Foster Despair

Such daily defilements have a peculiar power of fostering despair. They are like sickness in that point of view, and you know that sickness is a type of sin. Let a man be stricken with some sudden illness, and my experience is that he does not despair. Doctors will confirm this. It is not then that he loses hope or meditates on death. He summons all the strength that God has given him that he may battle the disease. Or if he is too weak for that, for disease in a day may make us weak as water, then he lies there, not in dull despair, but in a strange and acquiescent peace.

I shall tell you when it is that even the bravest is brought near the margin of despair. It is when every day and all day there is the gnawing away of some hidden malady. It is when a man goes to work and mingles with his fellows in the street, and all the time, like a dull undertone, is conscious that there is something wrong. It is that which leads so often to despair. It is that which makes the thought of death familiar. It is that which is the secret, never guessed at, of many a startling and unexpected suicide. And I feel that in the realm of sin which is so strangely linked with that of sickness, there is something analogous to that. Did you ever know of anyone despairing after a terrible and tragic fall? I never read of any in the Scripture. I never saw any in my ministry. But ah, how many I have seen who come to despair of ever attaining the highest—they were so crushed, so humbled and disheartened by the defilement of their daily sins. It is our little sins and not our great sins which have such a terrible power to make us hopeless. For our great sins cast us upon Jesus, and there is always hope when we are there. But our little sins leave us with ourselves and seem to mock us when we seek the highest, and tempt us to think that what we hoped for once must always be impossible for us.

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[nChrist]

Daily Defilements - Page 3
by George H. Morrison

How to Deal With Daily Defilement

One thing at least is clear, and that is that we must never contemplate escape by flight. If God has given us our work to do, then we must continue with it in spite of all the soiling. There can be no escape from daily sin by flying from the path of daily duty. It is such dreams that builds monasteries, and many a monastery becomes like Sodom. You remember how Peter, on the mount of glory, wanted to build tabernacles there. He wanted to live forever in that solitude where all the voices of the world were hushed. And then the Savior led him down again, right into the jostling of the crowd, and Peter learned that life was not given for a hermitage.

What would you think of a man who left his home here and the business he made his living by all because amid our grimy streets his face and hands grew dirty every day? Yet he who seeks to fly from his daily task because of the temptations which it carries and the defilement it inevitably brings is just as cowardly and absurd. Either you must conquer where you are, or you will not conquer anywhere. Flee from the devil, and he will resist you. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Do you recall that hour when Christ washed His disciples' feet? Do you recall the word He said to Peter, "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit"? My brother and sister, in that great word of Christ's there lies the Master's answer to our question. There is His treatment of the daily stain. He that is washed—and Peter had been washed. He had been bathed in the spirit of his Lord. Once and for all, coming to Jesus Christ, his guilt had been washed away forever. And now says Jesus, "Let me wash thy feet; let me cleanse off the soil of the daily walk"; and what He said to Simon Peter then, He says to you and me. I do believe that when a man is saved, he is saved not for a time but for eternity. I do believe that when we look to Christ, in that very moment all our sin is pardoned. But every day we need another cleansing for we have been traveling by dusty roads, and Christ is always stooping and ready to bestow His forgiveness. Do not rest at night till thou hast had it, brother. Summon the hours of the day before thee. Put forth thy feet and let Him wash them, for they are very dusty with the journey. So when thou wakest, thou shalt again be clean and ready for everything the day may bring, glad with the confidence of him who sang, "When I awake I am still with Thee."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
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(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
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[nChrist]

January 22

Fear and Faith

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." Psa_56:3

Let us consider for a little while some of the springs of human fear, and then notice how many of our fears spring from the imagination. It has been said (and I think truly said) that life is ruled by the imagination. The things we picture and weave in glowing colors have a very powerful influence over conduct. Often that influence is stimulative, illumining the pathway to discovery; often it creates or liberates fear. People who are highly sensitive are far more apt to be fearful than their neighbors. There are a hundred fears that never touch the man of stolid, unimaginative nature. That is why for a certain type of person to be brave may be comparatively easy, and for another infinitely hard.

Now, the worst thing about this kind of fear is that reason is powerless to allay it. You might as soon allay a fire with good advice. Argument is cold. It cannot banish the specters of the soul. It has no brush that can obliterate the pictures of the imagination. But there is another way, more powerful than reason, to overcome imaginative fears, and that is the way of this inspired psalmist. Faith is the antidote to fear. It quiets fear as the mother quiets her child. The child still dreams, but the dreams are not reality. It is the mother's arms that are reality. So we, His children, dreaming in the darkness and sometimes very frightened by our dreams, find "underneath the everlasting arms."

Weakness of Body

Another very common source of fear is weakness or frailty of body. Everyone is familiar with that. When we are strong and well it is not difficult to keep our fears at bay. Fears, like microbes, do not love the sunshine. They need the darkness for their propagation. That is why, when the lights of life are dim, we readily become the prey of fearfulness. We can bear burdens without a thought when we are strong and vigorous and well; we can meet tasks with quiet hearts; we can bravely face difficulties—but these seem insurmountable when we are worn and often plunge us into the lowest pit. We must never forget how the state of the mind is affected by the condition of the body. Health is not alone the source of happiness. It is one of the perennial springs of hope. Many of our vague uncharted fears which haunt us and rob us of the sunshine are rooted in the frailty of our bodies.

Now I have no doubt that many of my readers are far from being physically perfect. The fact is, there are very few of us who could be described as physically perfect. And to all such, whatever their condition, I want to give these wonderful words of Scripture: "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." He knows our frame. He remembers we are dust. He made us and He Understands us. He alone can perfectly appreciate the interactions of body and of mind. And when we trust Him in a childlike faith, nothing is more evident in life than the way in which He disappoints our fears. He grace is sufficient for us. Often when we are weak, then are we strong. Drawing from Him we find we have our fullness, given us daily as the manna was, until at last the "body of our humiliation" shall be fashioned like His glorious body, and then such fears will be laid to rest forever.

Faculty of Conscience

I close by naming one other source of fear, and that is the faculty of conscience. A guilty conscience is a fearing conscience——conscience makes cowards of us all. If we could get rid of conscience, what fears would go whistling down the wind! But God has so created us, that that is the one thing we cannot do. We may drug and dope it, we may silence it, we may sear it as with an iron, but, like the maiden, it is not dead but sleeping. It awakens in unexpected seasons, sometimes in the stillness of the night, or when our loved ones are removed in death, or when we see our sins bearing fruit in others; perhaps most often in our dying hours when the flaming colors of time no longer blind us and we draw near to the revelation of eternity. All the fears of our imagination, all the fears that spring from weakly bodies, all these, however haunting, are nothing to the fears of conscience. And the tremendous fact, never to be disputed by any theory of its evolution, is that God has put conscience in the breast.

But He who has put conscience in the breast has done something more wonderful than that. To minister relief to fearing conscience, He has put His Only-begotten on the tree. There, explain it as you will, is freedom from the hideous fears of conscience. There, explain it as you will, is release from the terrors of our guilt. One trustful look at the Lord Jesus Christ dying upon the cross of Calvary, and the fearfulness of conscience is no more. There is now therefore no more condemnation. Pardoned, we have joy and peace. God is for us on the cross, and if God be for us, who can be against us? Blessed Savior, who didst die for us and whose blood cleanseth from all sin, What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

January 23

The Rock That Is Higher Than I
"Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Psa_61:2

Whatever suggested the image of our text, the inward meaning of it is explicit. It is the long cry of the human heart for the forgiveness and comforting of God. There are times when the deepest craving of the soul is for something higher than itself. The self-reliance of our sunny hours is lost in a deep feeling of dependence. And that deep feeling of dependence, expressed in many relationships of life, is never satisfied nor perfected until it finds its rest in God. Now when the heart is overwhelmed (as was the psalmist's) there always falls a dimness on the eye. The rock of safety may be very near, but the mist hangs heavy, and we cannot see it. It is then the soul betakes itself to prayer and like the shipwrecked sailor or the desert wanderer supplicates heavenly guidance to the refuge. There is a rock higher than our highest, but we all need to be led to it. No one can by searching find out God. And how we are led there by a most loving guidance, whether it be of providence or grace, is the question which arises from our text.

The Experience of Failure

We see, for instance, how often men are led to the Rock by the bitter experience of failure. Man's extremity of need is heaven's opportunity of leadership. A pastor friend of mine was once traveling in a train. He was joined by a well-known merchant whose affairs were on the point of bankruptcy. And quite naturally, after a little talk, the merchant asked my friend if he would pray for him, and there in the carriage they knelt down and prayed. He was a strong, self-reliant man, that merchant. He was not given to asking help of anybody. But now the deepest craving of his heart was for something higher than himself on which to rest.

And much of what is difficult in life, and overwhelming to the point of heart-break, is but the kindly stratagem of heaven to lead us to the higher Rock. Those hours of heart-sinking familiar to us all, the feeling that we have spent our strength for nothing, the deep conviction which visits us in secret that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags—such things, for ten thousand souls, have been the hidden leadership of heaven to the Rock that is higher than themselves. Deep is calling unto deep, the deep of misery to that of mercy. Out of the depths man is always crying. And though he often knows not what he cries for, God knows and answers through the dark by leading the overwhelmed soul to Himself.

Devotion to the Best

Again, we note how often men are led thither by lowly devotion to the best. Loyal to the highest that they know, they are confronted by the higher Rock. If this universe is not a righteous universe and if love lies not at the heart of things, what use is there in striving to be righteous or in making love the passion of our lives? But the strange thing is that whenever a man is loyal to the best and worthiest he knows, he is never left with questions like that. He is led upward from his cherished loyalties to something loftier than his loyalties. It is a Rock, solid and impregnable; the Rock on which the universe is built. He passes upward from his values to the reality of what he values; he discovers he has aligned himself with God.

When men live for love and truth and mercy, God is always walking in their garden. They come to feel with deepening conviction that the things they strive for are not passing dreams, but answer to the realities of heaven. Do your duty, though it be very irksome, and do it because it is your duty; be tender-hearted, forgiving one another, no matter how you are tempted to be hard; and above you, over-arching you, the reality of what you strive for, you will discover God who is our Rock. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." To be true to the highest that we know is to be led to the Rock that is still higher. "Madam," said Dr. Hood Wilson once to a lady lamenting she had lost the Lord, "go down and work in the slums and you will find Him."

The Guiding Hand of Christ

But, above all, we are led to the Rock that is higher by the guiding hand of Christ—"no man cometh to the Father but by me." When we crave for the certainty that God is love, we may turn in vain to nature or to history. Nature and history have many voices, but they never cry, "I am the way." Only Christ proclaims Himself the way to One higher than our highest thought, because deeper than our deepest need. Thus, although the psalmist did not know it, he saw the day of Christ and he was glad. It was for Christ that he was yearning in that passionate outcry of his spirit. It is He who takes us by the hand and leads us where philosophy can never lead us, to Love, to a Father on the throne, to "the rock that is higher than I."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

January 24

Leaving It There
"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul." Psa_62:1 (Moffatt)

There are times in life when it is a great help to have someone say to us, "Leave all that to me." Like a gentle wind it blows the clouds away. When one has a difficult schedule or has arrangements to make for a marriage or a funeral, to have someone who is competent and expert take over is often an untold relief. There is much in life that we must do ourselves, and no one can relieve us of certain duties. There are crosses each of us must carry and burdens nobody can take away. But how much more difficult life would be in times of anxiety or strain were there not someone standing by to say to us, "Leave all that to me." That is particularly the voice of fatherhood, which in reality is the secret of childhood's carefree spirit. A child does not worry about clothes or meals. Instinctively it leaves that to its father. And much of the joy of childhood springs from the trustful relationship to somebody who says, "Leave all that to me."

It is beautiful to notice how the psalmist had grasped that comforting energy of God. Baffled, betrayed, a prey to bitter anguish—"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul." And so for him, too, came interior peace, and the light of heaven began to shine again and the storm was changed to calm.

Now this command which the psalmist gave his soul is one of the secrets of the spiritual life. No passing of ages has made it less imperative. Think, for instance, of those ways of providence which it is impossible to understand, for in every life, however blessed and happy, there are things impossible to understand. And often these are strange and bitter and so difficult to reconcile with love that the bravest soul is near to unbelief. When prayers seem to go unanswered, when someone dear and young is taken away, when those who would not harm a living creature are bowed under intolerable pain, how hard it is to say that God is good, and saying it, believe it with a confidence which is pleasing in His eyes. We want to know. We want to understand. Sometimes, like Job, we expostulate with God. And so, expostulating, everything grows harder till we are brought to the margins of despair. How much wiser the attitude of David, plunged into the very sea of trouble—"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul."

We are not here just to understand. Now we know in part and see in part. We are here to glorify God by trusting Him even when we do not understand. And such trusting carries its own evidences in the rich inward peace it brings as if our life were in tune with the Eternal. "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me." His meat was neither to probe nor to expostulate. When the cup was bitter, when the cross was heaviest, when the lights were darkened in the Garden of Gethsemane—He left it all quietly to God.

Questions Too Deep for Us

Think of those intellectual problems which visit and perplex the human mind. There are times in life when these are very perplexing. Who that has ever thought at all has not had anxious thoughts about the doctrine of election? What, too, of the foreordering of God and of His sovereignty, universal and particular, if I am really a creature of free will? Such things, and a thousand things like these, puzzle and confound the human mind. And we are so made that we cannot avoid thinking of them with the mysterious facilities which God has given us. Yet I venture to say that something must be wrong if such great thoughts that have baffled all the centuries rob the believer of his joy and peace.

There are times when it is well to consider such things. A great problem may be an inspiration. The opposite of faith is never reason; the opposite of faith is sight. But there are other times when the highest part of wisdom is not to torment ourselves with things too high for us, but to give our souls the counsel of the psalmist—"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul." Someday we shall arrive and understand. We shall see His face and His name shall be on our foreheads—it shall be written out in the region of the brain. Meantime we have a life to live, a heart to cultivate, a service to perform. "What is that to thee—follow thou me."

Failure and Discouragement

Again, we are to remember the psalmist's counsel in the hours when we have done our best—and failed. The higher the service that we seek to render, the more are we haunted by the sense of failure. The man who has no goal doesn't fear failure. But in higher ministries, when soul is touching soul and we are working not in things, but lives, how haunting is the sense of failure. Every Sunday School teacher knows it well, every mother with her growing family, and every preacher of the Gospel. So little accomplished, so little difference made, so little fruit for the laborious toil, although the seed sown may have been steeped in prayer. Well then, are we to give up in discouragement? Are we to leave the battle line and be spectators because we hear no cheering sound of triumph? My dear reader, there is a better way, and it is just the old way of this gallant psalmist—"Leave it all quietly to God, my soul."

Often when we fail, we are succeeding. We are doing more than we have dreamed. We are helping with our rough, coarse hands because Another with a pierced hand is there. Do your best, and do it for His sake. Keep on doing it and don't resign. And as to fruitage and harvest and success—leave it all quietly to Him.
"When obstacles and trials seem

Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[sincereheart]

Dr. Hood Wilson once to a lady lamenting she had lost the Lord,
"go down and work in the slums and you will find Him."

Amen! What a beautiful reminder! 

[nChrist]

January 25

Harvest Thanksgiving
"The valleys…are covered over with corn." Psa_65:13

One of the uses of the harvest festival is to awaken us to things we take for granted. We are always in danger of taking things for granted, especially in organized communities. The desert traveler can never take his water for granted, he has to shape his route to reach the wells. But in the city, where we have water supplied to every house, such a thing causes us no concern at all. That is especially true of daily bread. We just take it for granted. It has been bought at the baker's or the grocer's, and beyond that our vision seldom goes. And then comes the harvest festival, and beyond our city shops we see the golden mystery of harvest. We are awakened; we are shaken out of our ruts—and do you know what someone has said about these ruts? He has said that the rut only differs from the grave in that the latter is a little deeper. We are touched with the wonder of the commonplace—we feel the glory that invests the ordinary.

It is this, too, that makes it preeminently a Christian festival, for one of the beautiful things about our Lord was that He never took usual things for granted. The Pharisees were always doing that. They took the lilies of the field for granted. They took it for granted that if a woman was caught in sin, the God-appointed conduct was to stone her. And then came our Lord, with that dear heart of His, and He did not see just the glory of the rare thing; He saw the glory of the familiar thing—the sparrow and the mustard seed, and the woman who was a sinner on the streets.

It is very comforting to bear in mind that He never takes you for granted either. Other people are doing that continually: they have you classified and docketed in pigeon-holes. But to Him you are always wonderful though you are only a typist in an office and nobody would ever call you clever. Filled with the wonder and potential of the commonplace, that was the vision of the Savior, and it is to that that we are summoned by the recurrence of the harvest thanksgiving.

Mutual Dependence

Another benefit of harvest festival is to impress on us our mutual dependence. It is a call to halt a moment and reflect how we are all bound together with one another. The priceless secret of cooperation is God's secret of survival. The individual needs everybody, and everybody needs the individual.

Now at every harvest festival, how vividly is that thought brought before us! It preaches, with a kind of silent eloquence, the interdependence of man. Those sheaves of corn that stand within the sanctuary—who ploughed the fields for them? Who in the bleak morning sowed the seed, that sower and reaper might rejoice together? There are unknown ploughmen and harvesters and millers and bakers whose names are never heard behind that loaf of bread on the table. Was that why the Master chose the bread to be the Symbol of His dying love? He might have chosen one of the flowers which charmed Him and which He has bidden us to consider. But, choosing bread, He chose the staff of life, and that life wasn't one of isolation, but of a rich cooperating brotherhood. We are always in danger of forgetting that when we look at the bread on our table. And then the church comes with her harvest festival and says, "This do in remembrance," and we feel the interdependence of humanity and the fact that in back of everything the shops supply us with, stands the Creator, and on Him we utterly depend.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

January 27

Summer and Winter - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

"Thou hast made summer and winter." Psa_74:17

I suppose there are few who seriously doubt that the maker of summertime is God. There is something in every summer's glory that tells us of the touch of the divine, for here indeed we see the handiwork of God. But notice that in our text it says a great deal more than just that God hast made the summer. It says "Thou hast made the summer and the winter."

It was an old belief which is still held by multitudes that rival deities had been at work on nature. It was not the handiwork of one god; it was the handiwork of two gods. And all the sharp antagonisms of the universe and all the contrasts amid which we live were tokens of their mutual enmity. Had one made the glory of the day and the other the darkness of the night? Had one cheered us with the genial heart and the other cursed us with the bitter cold? It was one power that made the radiant morn, and another that made the deepening shadow. There were millions of people who believed that once, and there are millions who still believe it.

How different, how superbly different, is the spiritual vision of this singer of the Psalms! It was the God of Abraham who made the summer, and it was his God who made the winter, too. The very hand that decked the summer meadow and cast the mantle of green upon the forest touched that summer glory and it died. Thou hast made the summer and the winter. Thou hast clothed and thou hast stripped again. Thou hast lengthened out the shining hours, and thou hast crushed them into a little space. Thou hast created the gentle breath of evening that falls on man with benediction, and thou the bitter and the piercing blast.

The Summer and Winter of the Heart

Now I want you to carry that great truth into regions which the eye has never seen. I want you to believe that one God has made the summer and winter of the heart. There are experiences which come to every man which are tingling with the touch of heaven. They are so radiant and so delightful that we never doubt the hand which gave them to us. It is good to be grateful for such recurring gladness, but more is needed for a life of victory. He who would conquer must have faith to say, "Thou hast made the summer and the winter." God is not only gracious when the sun shines, He is just as gracious when the wind is sharp. He gives the glory and He strips the glory, and on His vesture is the name of Love. He who can trace His hand when it is winter—who can still say He loves me and He knows—has won the secret of that abiding peace which the world cannot give and cannot take away.

What a summertime the patriarch Job enjoyed! How the sun shone on him for many days! There was no one like him in the land of Uz for health and wealth and happiness and peace. And then there fell on him the blast of winter, and he was desolate and deathly cold, and "The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away," said Job, "blessed be the name of the Lord."

Do you remember what his wife advised him? His wife advised him to curse God and die. Do you remember what his friends advised him? It was to confess that he had played the hypocrite. But Job was far too big a man for that. "Though he slay me yet will I trust him," he said. The faith in which he conquered was just this, "Thou hast made the summer and the winter."

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[nChrist]

Summer and Winter - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Winter Is the Loom on Which Summer Is Made

And now another question arises: How does God make the summer? What is the unseen loom on which He weaves that garment of beauty which we see Him by? Don't consider me as being mystical when I reply that winter is the loom. It is a truth which science will corroborate that out of the winter He hath made the summer. When a child rises in the morning, what an exuberance of life there is! The eyes are bright and the feet swift to run and play; and all that life, so wonderful and glad, has been created in the womb of sleep.

We say that in winter everything is dead. That is what they said of Jairus' daughter. And then came Christ and looked at her and said, "The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth." So we learn that in the dead of winter—and we never talk about the dead of summer—what we call death is but the child's sleep. Life has not vanished even though the eyes are closed. And then comes morning with all its joy and renewed life, all because of the quiet sleep of wintertime. There is no thrilling beauty of springtime without the chill of December. God needs the one if He would make the other. He fashions glory out of decay.

Consider that truth then and carry it to a higher sphere. It is as true of us as of the earth that winter holds the secret of the summer. Out of December, God will fashion June. Out of the cross, He fashions the crown. Out of the trial that was so hard to bear, He brings the beauty of the saintly character. "God be merciful to me a sinner"—that is the winter of our discontent, and yet when a man has cried that prayer of despair, he is preparing for his summer and his song.

There came to Glasgow, not so long ago, a pianist with an excellent reputation. I read the Herald's criticism of him, and there was one thing in it that I especially noted. The Herald said that he had been always brilliant—always been wonderful as an executant—but now there was a depth of feeling in him that had never been present in his work before. A day or two afterwards while preaching in a suburb, I met a relative of the pianist. As we began to discuss him and the Herald's criticism of him, the relative said to me, "Did you notice that? And do you know what was the secret of the change? It was the death of his mother eighteen months ago." He was an only son, unmarried, and had been simply devoted to his mother. And then she died and he was left alone, and all the depths were broken up in him. And now he played as only he can play who knows what life and death are and what sorrow is—and out of the winter God had made his summer.

Perpetual sunshine may make men brilliant, perhaps, but never deep. They don't understand. They never know. They condescend, for they cannot sympathize, for much that is beautiful in men and women springs from the season when the tree is stripped. All that is fairest in the world rises from the darkness of the cross. My brother, that is also how He leads us, for to our hearts the world is but the shadow. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

Why Did God Make the Summer and Winter?

There is only one answer that can be given to that question in the light of all that we have learned. Not just for their own sakes has He made them—not for their sublimity or beauty merely. Through night and day, through sunshine and through storm, God has His purpose which is never baffled. And that one purpose—how shall we describe it? Put in simple language it is this: It is the purpose of every living thing that after summer there should be the harvest. Of course, God has made purposes in every thing and every season. Undoubtedly when He made the summer beautiful, He meant it to give pleasure to His children. But there is one thing deeper than all others, and that is the mellowing of the harvest field. Nothing is beautiful in nature for its own sake. Beauty is a trust for other's sakes. Summer and winter look beyond themselves to the time when the flower shall wither and the fruit shall come. He that liveth to himself is dead. There is he that scattereth and yet increaseth. Our gifts——our summer sun and winter storm—these have an end to serve in other lives. We are not here simply to be happy. We are here to serve and be a blessing. And "Thou hast made our summer and our winter" that we may have the joy of harvest time.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

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[nChrist]

January 28

The Higher Purposes of Winter - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

"Thou hast made.., winter." Psa_74:17

It is always easy to believe that God has made the summertime. There is something in a perfect summer day that speaks to us of the divine. The beauty which is around us everywhere, the singing of the birds in every tree, the warmth of the pleasant summer sun, the amazing prodigality of life, these, as by filaments invisible, draw our hearts to the Giver of them all and make it easy to say, "Thou hast made the summer."

With winter it is different. It is not so easy to see the love of God there. There is a great deal of suffering in winter both for the animal creation and for man. It may therefore aid the faith of some who may be tempted to doubt the love of God in winter if I suggest some of its spiritual accomplishments.

Winter Deepens Our Appreciation of Summer

One of the higher offices of winter is to deepen our appreciation of the summer. We should be blind if summer were perpetual. Someone has said, and very truly said, that our dear ones are only ours when we have lost them. They have to pass away into the silent land before we know them for what they really are. And in like manner summer has to pass, leaving us in the grip of icy winter, before we fully appreciate the summer. It is not the man who lives in lovely Scotland who feels most deeply how lovely Scotland is. It is the exile on some distant shore, yearning for the mountains and the glens. It is not the man with abundant, unbroken health who feels most deeply the value of his health. That is realized when health is shattered.

In Caithness, where I lived four years, there is a great scarcity of trees. I never knew how much I loved the trees till I dwelt in a land where there are none. And we never know all that summer means to us, in its pageantry of life and beauty, till we lose it in the barrenness of winter. Lands that have no winter have no spring. They never know the thrilling of the spring when the primroses awake and the wild hyacinths, and the iris waves in the breeze. Thoughts like these, in January days, make it easier for faith to say, "Thou hast made the winter."

Winter Puts Demands Upon the Will

Another of the higher purposes of winter is the greater demands it makes upon the will. I should like to take a simple illustration. In summer it is comparatively easy to get out of bed at the appointed hour. For the earth is warm, and the birds are busy singing, and the light is streaming through the open windows. But in winter, to fling the covers off and get up when it is dark and perishingly cold, that is quite a different affair. That calls for a certain resolution. It makes instant demands upon the will.

Now broaden that thought to the compass of the day, and you reach a truth that cannot be denied. The countries where the will is most developed and where moral life is most vigorous and strong are the countries that have winter in their year. There "ain't no Ten Commandments east of Suez," says Kipling in a familiar line. The singular thing is that east of Suez there isn't any winter in the year. Rigorous winter days when life is difficult and when it takes some doing even to get up are God's tonic for His children's will. "O well for him whose will is strong. He suffers, but he does not suffer long." Let any young fellow have his will under control and he is on the highway to his victory. Summer is languid; winter makes us resolute. We have to do things when we don't feel like them. And Thou—the Giver of the Ten Commandments—Thou hast made the winter.

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[nChrist]

The Higher Purposes of Winter - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Winter Intensifies the Thought of Home

Another accomplishment of winter is to intensify the thought of home. In lands that bask in a perpetual sunshine, home-life is always at a minimum. I had a friend who for three years was prisoner in an internment camp in Germany. I asked him once when he felt most homesick, and I am not likely to forget his answer. He said that the only times when he felt homesick were when fog settled down upon the camp reminding him of winter fogs in Glasgow. In summer he was happy. It was good to be alive in summer. But when the fog came, he thought of lighted streets and saw his cozy and comfortable home. And always the thought of home is sweetest, and the home-life richest and most beautiful, in the dark, cold season of the winter. We talk in the same breath of hearth and home, and it is in winter that the hearth is glowing.

There is one poem about a humble home more beautiful than any other in our literature. It is a picture by the hand of genius of the joy and reverence of the hearth. But the "Cottar's Saturday Night" could never have been written in the tropics. It is the child of a land with winter in its year.

Now think of everything we owe to home. Think of what the nation owes to home. "From scenes like these auld Scotia's grandeur springs." Home is the basis of national morality. Is it not easier when one thinks of these things to say in the bitterest January day, "Thou hast made the winter"?

Winter Stirs Us to Charity

The last purpose of winter I shall mention is how it stirs our sluggish hearts to charity. With that we are all perfectly familiar. Did you ever watch a singer in the street in the warm and balmy days of summer? The passersby pay him little heed and rarely give him a coin even though he is singing all the charms of Annie Laurie. But in winter, when the air is biting, and when the snow is deep upon the ground, Annie Laurie brings him in a harvest. Folk are extraordinarily good to me in giving me donations for the poor. For one donation that I get in summertime, however, I get ten in the bitterness of winter. Winter unlocks the gates of charity. It unseals the hidden springs of pity. It moves us with compassion for the destitute, and so to be moved is a very Christlike thing. Such thoughts as these in stern and icy days, when we are tempted perhaps to doubt the love of God, make it easier to say with David, "Thou hast made the winter."

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

January 29

The Highway in the Sea - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

"Thy way is in the sea." Psa_77:19

Doubtless when the psalmist penned our text, his first thought was the crossing of the Red Sea. He was seeking to revive his drooping heart by recalling the saving power of God in Israel's past. But the words of a true poet never end when we have found their literal significance. It is one mark of poetic inspiration that it is capable of indefinite expansion. It is not by narrowing down, it is by widening out, that we get to the real genius of a poet, and the writer of this psalm had the true gift. Thy way is in the sea—were there not glimpses in that of truths which the Exodus never could exhaust? So did the writer feel—so must we all feel—and it is on two of these suggestions that I wish to dwell.

The Sea As an Object of Dread

There were two places above all others dreaded by the Jew. The one was the desert and the other was the sea. The desert—for it was the home of the wild beasts and the haunt of the robbers who plundered the Jewish villages, and it was across the desert that those armies came which besieged Jerusalem and pillaged it. And the sea—because it was full of storms and treachery in Jewish eyes; it was the hungry, cruel, insatiable deep. It is very difficult for us who are an island nation to enter into that feeling of the Jew. The ocean is our defense and our great ally, and we have loved the sound of its waves since we were children. But to the Hebrew it was very different. For him there was no rapture in the lonely shore. He loved his fields and his vineyards and his markets, but the element he dreaded was the sea.

But now comes the voice of the great Jewish singer and says to the people, God's way is in the sea. In the very sphere and element they dread there is the path and purpose of divinity. They loved their gardens and the Lord was there. They loved their vineyards and the Lord was there. In places that were sweet and dear to them, there was the presence of the God of Israel. But nonetheless in the realm of what was terrible and in the regions which they shunned instinctively, there was the ordered path of the Almighty.

I think we should all do well to learn that lesson—God's way is in the very thing we dread. We are so apt to cry that God has forgotten us when the experience which we loathe arrives. We all love health, but we all dread disease. We love success, but we dread disappointment. We love the energy and glow of life, but we dread the silence of death and the cold grave—but the way of the Lord of heaven is in the sea. Believe that He is working out His purposes through what is dark as well as through what is bright. Believe that what is hardest to bear or understand is never disordered nor purposeless nor pathless. What is the object of thy greatest dread, O Hebrew? Is it the sea? "God's way is
in the sea."

The Restless Sea

And second, the sea is the element of restlessness. That is a familiar thought in the Old Testament, receiving its noblest and most poetic expression in Psa_107:1-43. It is not easy for us to realize how vividly this thought impressed the ancient world, for the most ignorant among us has been taught by science that nothing in the whole universe is at rest. The earth is flying with tremendous speed around the sun; and the solar system itself is hurrying somewhere; we hardly need to turn to the waves of the sea to get our parable of restless energy. It was very different with the Jew. For him, the earth was fixed under a fixed heaven. It was set fast by the ordering of God. And over against it, in the sharpest of all contrasts, rocked and surged the restless sea. The sea was the element of change, the home of restlessness. One day it was as calm as if it were asleep; the next it was tossed and rent in a storm. It was all that of which a Jew would think when the word came to him that God's way was in the sea.

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[nChrist]

The Highway in the Sea - Page 2
by George H. Morrison

Now, there is an unrest in our life that is the consequence and issue of our sin. It is as true today as when the prophet wrote it, that "there is no rest for the wicked, saith my God." Let a man deliberately choose the lower levels and yield up the reins to his baser nature, and his whole existence becomes one of great discontent there is nothing of God's way in that.

But there is a restlessness that is inspired; there is a discontent that is divine; there is a spirit within us that will not let us rest, and it is the very spirit of the wind-swept sea; and if there is one thing written clear in human history, it is that the way of God is there.

In one of Shakespeare's sonnets there is a memorable line, "With what I must enjoy, contented least." There can be little doubt, from the connection, that Shakespeare is referring to his plays. "With what I most enjoy, contented least"—then Shakespeare was not satisfied with Hamlet. There is a grand unrest there like the unrest of the ocean, and through the heart of it there runs the track of God. We are not here to be satisfied and indifferent. We shall be satisfied when we awake. We are here to strive and yearn and toil and pray for things that are too large for our three-score years. And in that distressing and yet divine unrest, there is the way and ordering of God. God's way is never in the stagnant pool; His way is ever in the restless sea. It is He who says to us, "This is not your rest." It is He who fills us with eternal hope. It is He who makes us rise after each failure to strive again for what we cannot reach. So we toil on and all we do is fragmentary, but we shall be satisfied in the eternal morning. He keeps us "climbing up the climbing wave" here, but in heaven there shall be no more sea.

____________________

George H. Morrison Devotions

Dist. Worldwide in the Great Freeware Bible Study package called
e-Sword by Rick Meyer: http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html
Full Featured - Outstanding - Completely FREE - No Strings Attached

(The goal of Rick Meyer is to distribute excellent Bible Study
Software to every country on earth in their own language FREE
of charge, and that goal gets closer by the day.)
____________________

[nChrist]

January 30

The Secrecy of God - Page 1
by George H. Morrison

"Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." Psa_77:19

Men tell us that there are few more impressive sights than that of a burial at sea. It is even more solemn and arresting than the last rites beside an earthly grave. There is the ceasing of the throbbing engines, the gathering of the hushed crowd upon the deck. There is the simple service, the lifting of the body, and then—the plunge into the deep. And it is this element of silent secrecy, this hiding in unfathomable depths, which thrills and solemnizes and subdues.

Something like that was in the poet's mind when he said of God, "Thy way is in the sea." Mingling with all his other thoughts was the thought that God has His unfathomable secrets. And it is upon that element of secrecy, so characteristic of the divine procedure, that I want to dwell.

The Divine Secrecy of God's Gifts

The best gifts are always at our hand. The brightest are never far away. All things needed for the song and crown are in the region where our hearts are beating. And yet though they are here, they are not flaunting themselves. They are by our side, but they are never showy. There is no name inscribed upon their foreheads nor any blast of the trumpet on their lips.

Think, for example, of the gift of love. In the darkest spot on earth some love is found. I doubt if there is a man so brutal and so base that no one loves him and thrills at his approach. And yet how silent and how secret love is, hiding itself away from human eye and speaking in a momentary glance. Our poets liken love to a flower. It is red as the rose, white as the lily. Yet love is not a flower of the field; love is the treasure hidden in the field. And thousands cross the field and never see it nor do they dream of the treasure hidden there until at last, in the appointed hour, passes the traveler who understands.

It is always so with the love of man. It is always so with the love of God. God's love is here, and yet how secret and hidden it all is—-how meaningless to the blinded—till Christ has come and shown His wounded side and led us to the glory of the cross.

The Providence of Life

The same thing also is true of the gift of life. Life is the one impenetrable secret. We have it and we thank God for it, and yet the wisest does not know what it is. It is not only of the heaven of heavens when looking up we say, "Thy footsteps are not known." It is not only where the sun is shining and where beyond the sun there are the angels. The deepest mysteries are not in heaven; the deepest mysteries are not in hell. The deepest mysteries are here where we are, and know not what we are. Life looks at us in every human glance. Life speaks to us in every human voice. Life meets us riotously in the play of children. Life shines transfigured on the face of saints. And yet what is it, so near and yet so far; so strong and beautiful, and yet so frail; so evident that none can pass it by; so hidden that no human hand can reach it? It baffles science with all its mighty claims. It baffles philosophy with all its pondering. No thought can get at it. Yet it is here where you are sitting and where I am writing. God's footsteps are in the temple of my heart, and yet His footsteps are not known.

Not with the sound of a bell does God arrive when our feet are at the turning of the ways. Over the silent sea the boat approaches, but the oars are muffled and we don't hear it as it comes from the haven of the far away. Decked with the embroidery of common moments, the moments which are not common reach us. Wearing the aspect of our usual hours, our great hours of destiny arrive—and life shall never be the same again. We thought it was a common hand that touched us; we know now it was the hand of God. Ah! sirs, life would be easy if providential hours declared themselves; if they met us radiant and with an uplifted look, and cried, "I am one of thy great hours." But they never meet us in a guise like that—never betray their greatness by their bearing—we hear no sound of the approaching footsteps—thy footsteps are not known.

When Abraham rested by the door at Mamre, he saw three travelers drawing near to the tent. They were but wayfarers, thirsty and dusty, and he had no idea that they were angels. And it is always thus that the angel-hours come, wearing the garments of the undistinguished, treading on the dusty ways of life, worn with the everyday weariness of man. How many noisy hours have passed away, and left no impact upon our life. How many a little hour has been a seed, and it rooted deep and blossomed high as heaven. Yet was it borne upon the wind so noiselessly and fell so lightly that we never noticed it; and its roots are deep today and its topmost branches in the sky.

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