Seeking Lovingkindness Amid Suffering
Asks to perceive God’s lovingkindness through nature, suffering, and death, hoping that goodness can emerge from corruption and sorrow.
Historical edition. Historical claims and instructions are preserved as historical context.
ALMIGHTY! it is good to feel the lovingkindness of man; but, Oh, if we knew and understood all Thy lovingkindness, then indeed should our bowed hearts be lifted up. O Lord! if we did but see Thy mercy in the lightning flash, in the stormy wind, when death comes and touches the red lips of the babe into whiteness and silence, when the nights are a weariness and the days a pain, when life is a burden and the sunshine a nuisance, when the world is evil, when the dregs come through the wine, when there is no Elim and no palm trees!
Lord, make us wise to watch the orderly goings of nature, to see the things our fathers feared, and we fear no longer. Make us wise to see in our own story the same unbroken law. All things live in Thee. If we truly believed that, how peacefully should we go on our way in storm and sunshine, in evil and in good times, our hearts being stayed upon Thee, nothing fearing, nothing doubting. All things are Thine, poisons and their antidotes, the nauseous drugs and the fair red rose. We behold how in the ordinary goings of nature the dunghill becomes bloom and beauty, how out of mean and base things, spring fair and glorious things; and so out of the sin and corruption and evil of man's sad life, shalt Thou not bring wondrous beauty and glory?
Lord, grant us truly to believe this, then shall we be comforted with Thy lovingkindness. And when the battle is over, and the victory gained, receive us into the Life Everlasting.—AMEN.