THE HILL-COUNTRY OF PERFECT TRUST
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"Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me." Micah 7:7
Heart-rending griefs are often the forerunners of great spiritual blessing. It must needs be a heavy wave of affliction — which casts some of us high and dry on the safe and sheltered shore of complete confidence in God. It was a most distressful acquaintance with earth's shame and sorrow which drew from the Lord's prophet, the exalted utterance of the text — and we often have to learn the blessedness of turning to God, and trusting Him — by the sharp pain of finding out that He alone is a dependable and constant Friend.
Come, my heart, God has set you a lesson to repeat, this morning, which has stood you in good stead in many a time of sorrow! To say it over again, will help you to get it by heart, for you can not too often remember the loving-kindness of the Lord, and the many deliverances He has wrought for you.
Reading the first six verses of this chapter, we see in each of them a "because" for the "therefore "which follows in the seventh. Manifold miseries and woes, are here delineated by the prophet. He has discovered the faithlessness of friends, he has endured the pitiless malice of enemies — feuds and factions, bribes and betrayals, crimes and cruelties have encompassed him, even the closest of all human ties has been strained; he is solitary, desolate, and discouraged — his soul faints within him. But in the face of all this grief, nay, because of it, he remembers the Lord, and an upward look to Him brings swift and sure relief. The very extremity of his condition has caused him to flee to the only Refuge, the very bitterness of his distresses has suggested the sweet solace of rest in God's unchangeable love.
Dear Father, how often do we, Your children, share in the experience so vividly described by Micah! Great tempests of sorrow beat upon us, we see the shipwreck of all our dearest hopes, and suffer the desertion of many friends — before we reach this rock of "therefore", and can stand upon its summit with uplifted face, regardless of the angry waves below, and with all our hope and expectation centered in God alone. The teaching and the discipline of life are truly blessed to us — when earthly troubles serve to raise us nearer to our Heavenly Father, and the sad inconstancy of the creature reveals to us more distinctly, the immutability of Him who has loved us from all eternity.
"Therefore I will look unto the Lord." Eyes and heart are both sorely aching with grief at the sight of the sin, and selfishness, and sorrow which are within and around me; but help me, dear Lord, to look up, enable me to "lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help." As travelers on the great mountains refrain from looking down the steep precipices, keeping their eyes fixed on the heights above, lest a sudden vertigo should overcome them — so may I look unto the Lord with humble, steadfast gaze, and receive courage and strength to press onward and upward in the path He has marked out for me!
"I will wait for the God of my salvation." Though bruised and wearied by the roughness of the way, I have at last reached a safe shelter and resting-place where I may wait until my Lord reveals Himself to me as my Deliverer.
How blessed am I to know that One so mighty both in love and power, watches over and directs my steps — One who is not only "God", but "the God of my salvation!" He has a more tender and personal interest in me than in the angels of Heaven, for I am that marvel of marvels, a sinner saved by grace, a soul redeemed unto God by His most precious blood!
For Him I will wait, confident and expectant. As someone lately said, "I know I am cared for; but just what His care may deem best for me, this I do not know." I can leave all with Him, and wait the unfolding of His will and purpose concerning me.
Waiting for the Lord is often the surest mode of progression in the Divine life; and to be silent before Him, is not infrequently the most importunate of petitions.
"My God will hear me!" Of course He will; let us never doubt it. This is the language of full assurance, the tongue of the dwellers in the hill-country of Perfect Trust. Such speech well befits those who look to and wait for the God of their salvation.
Dear reader, do you use it often and well?
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