“LORD, TO WHOM SHALL WE GO BUT UNTO THEE, THOU HAST THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE.”
27th Day.
“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said”—
“A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.”—John xvi. 16.
The Little While.
Long seem the moments when we are separated from the friend we love. An absent brother—how his return is looked and longed for! The “Elder Brother”—the “Living Kinsman”—sends a message to His waiting Church and people—a word of solace, telling that soon (“a little while,”) and He will be back again, never again to leave them.
There are indeed blessed moments of communion which the believer enjoys with His beloved Lord now; but how fitful and transient! To-day, life is a brief Emmaus journey—the soul happy in the presence and love of an unseen Saviour. To-morrow, He is gone; and the bereft spirit is led to interrogate itself in plaintive sorrow,—“Where is now thy God?” Even when there is no such experience of darkness and depression, how much there is in the world around to fill the believer with sadness! His Lord rejected and disowned—His love set at nought—His providences slighted—His name blasphemed—His creation groaning and travailing in pain—disunion, too, among His people—His loving heart wounded in the house of His friends!