Spurgeon
Updated: Aug 27
This blew my mind.
For the last year, I’ve been reading through a book called Morning & Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon — a daily devotional over a century old.
Admittedly, I’ve missed days here and there, especially the day I took Nicole into the ER for emergency surgery—the same day we found out about her cancer. So I went back to April 29 to read Spurgeon’s devo for that day of disaster.
I missed what I needed that day, and I'm thankful I went back now. Maybe it’ll encourage you too.
Morning - April 29
You are my refuge in the day of disaster. - Jeremiah 17:17 ESV
The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine. We have our seasons of darkness and storm. True, it is written in God’s Word that “her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Proverbs 3:17 ESV), and it is a great truth that religion is designed to give people happiness on earth as well as bliss above. But experience tells us that if the course of righteous people is “like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day” (Proverbs 4:18), sometimes that light is eclipsed.
At certain times, clouds cover the believer’s sun—he or she walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in God’s presence for a while; they have basked in the sunshine in the early stages of their Christian lives; they have walked along the “green pastures” by the side of the “still waters” . . . but they suddenly find the glorious sky is clouded over. Instead of the prosperous land of Goshen they have to travel a sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to the taste. They say, “Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen.”
Oh, don’t say that, you who walk in the darkness. The best of God’s saints must drink the bitter water; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows (see Psalm 137:1–2). Perhaps the Lord originally gave you a smooth, unclouded path because you were weak and fearful. He moderated the wind that blew on a newly-sheared lamb—but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter the rougher experience of God’s full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten limbs of self-dependence and root us more firmly in Christ.
The day of disaster reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.
