Life is a journey, often a short one, and always uncertain.
But there is another journey.
The believer is traveling through a waste howling
wilderness, to another and a glorious region, where
ineffable delight and happiness await us.
The road is narrow, the entrance strait, so strait
that thousands miss it and perish in the wilderness.
But true believers, under the teaching and convoy
of the Holy Spirit, find it and walk in it.
The King, in His infinite love and compassion, has
made a hedge about them, separating and defending
them from the many beasts of prey that lurk around
them; and although they hear their howlings and
behold their threatenings, they are safe from their power.
But their strongest foe is within themselves; a heart
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. From
this there is no escape but by constant watchfulness, and
earnest cries to their best Friend and Guide for protection.
Were it not for this faithful Guide, how often, discouraged
by reason of the way, would they turn back!
But He….
watches over them by night and by day,
strengthens them when weak,
upholds them when falling,
encourages them when cast down,
defends them when attacked,
provides for them when in need,
leads them by living streams, and
causes them there to lie down in pleasant
pastures, and on sunny banks.
And as they advance they obtain brighter views of
the good land they are nearing, and they long to see
the King in His beauty, and the land that is yet very
far off, and to meet those that have already arrived
on that happy shore.