Spurgeon: March PM
* 03/10/PM
"Man . . . is of few days, and full of trouble."
--Job 14:1
It may be of great service to us, before we fall asleep, to
remember this mournful fact, for it may lead us to set loose by
earthly things. There is nothing very pleasant in the
recollection that we are not above the shafts of adversity, but
it may humble us and prevent our boasting like the Psalmist in
our morning's portion. "My mountain standeth firm: I shall
never be moved." It may stay us from taking too deep root in
this soil from which we are so soon to be transplanted into the
heavenly garden. Let us recollect the frail tenure upon which we
hold our temporal mercies . If we would remember that all the
trees of earth are marked for the woodman's axe, we should not
be so ready to build our nests in them. We should love, but we
should love with the love which expects death, and which reckons
upon separations. Our dear relations are but loaned to us, and
the hour when we must return them to the lender's hand may be
even at the door. The like is certainly true of our worldly
goods . Do not riches take to themselves wings and fly away? Our
health is equally precarious. Frail flowers of the field, we
must not reckon upon blooming for ever. There is a time
appointed for weakness and sickness, when we shall have to
glorify God by suffering, and not by earnest activity. There is
no single point in which we can hope to escape from the sharp
arrows of affliction; out of our few days there is not one
secure from sorrow. Man's life is a cask full of bitter wine; he
who looks for joy in it had better seek for honey in an ocean of
brine. Beloved reader, set not your affections upon things of
earth: but seek those things which are above, for here the
moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all
joys are perpetual and eternal. The path of trouble is the way
home. Lord, make this thought a pillow for many a weary head!