Spurgeon: July AM
* 07/03/AM
"The illfavoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven
wellfavoured and fat kine."
--Genesis 41:4
Pharaoh's dream has too often been my waking experience. My
days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved
in times of zealous industry; my seasons of coldness have frozen
all the genial glow of my periods of fervency and enthusiasm;
and my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances
in the divine life. I had need to beware of lean prayers, lean
praises, lean duties, and lean experiences, for these will eat
up the fat of my comfort and peace. If I neglect prayer for
never so short a time, I lose all the spirituality to which I
had attained; if I draw no fresh supplies from heaven, the old
corn in my granary is soon consumed by the famine which rages in
my soul. When the caterpillars of indifference, the cankerworms
of worldliness, and the palmerworms of self-indulgence, lay my
heart completely desolate, and make my soul to languish, all my
former fruitfulness and growth in grace avails me nothing
whatever. How anxious should I be to have no lean-fleshed days,
no ill-favoured hours! If every day I journeyed towards the goal
of my desires I should soon reach it, but backsliding leaves me
still far off from the prize of my high calling, and robs me of
the advances which I had so laboriously made. The only way in
which all my days can be as the "fat kine," is to feed them in
the right meadow, to spend them with the Lord, in His service,
in His company, in His fear, and in His way. Why should not
every year be richer than the past, in love, and usefulness, and
joy?--I am nearer the celestial hills, I have had more
experience of my Lord, and should be more like Him. O Lord, keep
far from me the curse of leanness of soul; let me not have to
cry, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" but may I be
well-fed and nourished in Thy house, that I may praise Thy name.