Soul-Comfort
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"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comforts delight my soul." Psalm 94:19
"Your comforts delight any soul." Blessed Lord, how sweet is this text in my mouth! The taste of it is "like wafers made with honey." It is both food and drink to my heart, for every word has joy and refreshing in it; so that, like the "best wine" of the Canticles, it "goes down sweetly, causing the lips of those who are asleep to speak." "Your comforts — Your comforts delight my soul."
Give me grace, dear Master, to sit at Your table, this morning, and eat and drink abundantly, as Your beloved ones may do, of the Divine dainties Your love has here provided! Help me so to speak of them, that not only my own soul — but the souls of others may enjoy the heavenly manna, and be filled with the mingled and spiced wine of remembrance and expectation! Human comforters we may have had, and we blessed them for their kindness; but none can comfort like You, for You are "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort." Come then, dear Lord, help us to spread out this feast of fat things, and set it in order before our eyes, that we may see what reason we have to "comfort those who are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God."
"When my anxious thoughts multiply within me," the first of Your comforts, gracious God, is this — that You have said unto my soul, "I am your salvation!" He saves us, not because of any merit in us, or any deservings of our own; but because sovereign grace chose us, and Divine compassion redeemed us; and when we were far off, infinite pity brought us back, and made us near by the precious blood of Christ. It may well "comfort our hearts" — this "everlasting consolation and good hope through grace" — coming as it does direct from "our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, who has loved us." A saved and pardoned sinner can truly say, "Your comforts delight my soul!"
The next thought is that, having saved us, He keeps us. "We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." Comparatively few Christians put God's keeping power fully to the test. If we would trust Him for the keeping, as we do for the saving — our lives would be far holier and happier than they are. "I will keep it every moment," is one of those grandly unlimited promises which most of us are afraid of; and we store them away in the background because we dare not believe them, and bring them out into the light of our daily practice. O foolish and unbelieving hearts, how much of soul-delighting comfort do we thus miss!
Then comes another thought, He cares for us. Dear friends, if you are His, you know the exceeding comfort of casting all your care upon Him, and being quite sure that He will "undertake" for you. Have we not often come to Him oppressed and burdened with an intolerable weight of anxiety and distress — and been enabled to roll the whole mass of it on Him, leaving it all at His feet, and returning to our work with a lightened and restful heart? Some of us have had burdens and sorrows, which would have crushed the very life out of us — if we had not been enabled to look up and say, "You, O Lord, have helped and comforted me." Yes, truly, God's care for us is one of the sweetest comforts of our mortal life!
Closely linked with this, is that other thought that He knows all about us. Our enemies — sometimes, even our friends — misunderstand and malign us; they misconstrue our words and actions, and impute to us motives which never actuated us. But our God knows the thoughts and intents of our heart, and never makes a mistake in the judgment He passes on us. The comfort of this knowledge on the Lord's part, to those who are "suffering wrongfully," is inexpressibly precious. They can lift up their heads with joy, and say, "The Lord is good. He knows those who trust in Him." I have known this comfort so delight my soul, that trials and temptations had no power to vex or annoy it, for it was hidden "secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues."
Lastly (though there are many, many more), one of the multitude of thoughts which stand out prominently from the rest, as a comfort that delights the soul — is that He loves us. This truth has been running through the fields of previous thought, as a silver streamlet glides through the meadows — here, it should deepen and expand to a broad and fathomless ocean, had I the power to speak of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, and to tell of the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.
But my pen utterly fails here. I feel as John Berridge must have felt when he wrote, "We must die, to speak fully of Christ!" You who love Him, and know that He loves you — must each one say to himself what that "comfort of love" is to your own heart. This will be a better comment than any I can offer. And, if some poor distressed soul is mourning the loss of the sweet consolation which Christ's love alone can give — let him call to remembrance a tenderly precious promise which the Lord put into the lips of the prophet Isaiah, "I have seen his ways — but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him!" Isaiah 57:18
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