My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year | Page 5

my bread and water are sure. The Lord has
strange manna for the children of disappointment, and He makes water
to "gush forth from the rock." Duty can lead me nowhere without Him,
and His provision is abundant both in "the thirsty desert and the dewy
mead." There will be a spring at the foot of every hill, and I shall find

"lilies of peace" in the lonely valley of humiliation.

JANUARY The Fourteenth
FORGETTING GOD
DEUTERONOMY viii. 11-20.
"Beware ... lest when thou hast eaten and art full ... thine heart be lifted
up, and thou forget the Lord thy God." I was in a little cottage near
Warwick. I said to the good man who lived in it, "Can you see the
castle?" and he replied, "We can see it best in the winter when the
leaves are off the trees. In the summer time it is apt to be hid!" The
summer bounty hid the castle; the winter barrenness revealed it! And so
it is in life. In the season of fulness we are prone to be blind to "the
house of many mansions," and we forget the Master of the house, the
Lord our God. Our material wealth hides our eternal treasure.
What, then, shall we do in the days of our prosperity, when all our trees
are in full leaf? We must pray that material things may never become
opaque, that they may be always transparent, so that through the seen
we may behold the unseen. This is a gift of the Spirit, and it may be
ours. He will anoint our eyes with the eye-salve of grace, and
everything will become to us a symbol of something better, so that
even in the midst of material plenty our hearts will be with our treasure
in heaven. Everything will be to us "as it were transparent glass."

JANUARY The Fifteenth
THE MINISTRY OF PRAISE
PSALM cxv.
"The Lord hath been mindful of us: He will bless us." In that joyful
assurance there is both retrospect and prospect. There is the trodden

pathway of Providence, and there is the star of hope! The eyes are
steadied and refreshed in sacred memories, and then they gaze into the
future with serene and happy confidence. And so the Ebenezer of the
soul becomes both a thanksgiving and a reconsecration.
Now perhaps our hopes are thin because our praises are scanty. Perhaps
our expectations are clouded because our memories are dim. There is
nothing so quickens hope as a journey among the mercies of our
yesterdays. The heart lays aside its fears amid the accumulated
blessings of our God. Worries pass away like cloudlets in the warmth
of a summer's morning. And the recollections of God's goodness
always make summer even in the wintriest day.
Now I see why the New Testament is so urgent in the matter of praise.
Without praise many other virtues and graces cannot be born. Without
praise they have no breath of life. Praise quickens a radiant company of
heavenly presences, and among them is the shining spirit of hope.

JANUARY The Sixteenth
THE DISTINCTION OF BEING RECOGNIZED
JOHN x. 1-18.
The Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and knows them by name. And
that is what I am tempted to forget. I think of myself as one of an
innumerable multitude, no one of whom receives personal attention.
"My way is overlooked by my God." But here is the evangel--the
Saviour would miss me, even me!
At a great orchestral rehearsal, which Sir Michael Costa was
conducting, the man who played the piccolo stayed his fingers for a
moment, thinking that his trifling contribution would never be missed.
At once Sir Michael raised his hand, and said: "Stop! Where's the
piccolo?" He missed the individual note. And my Lord needs the note
of my life to make the music of His Kingdom, and if the note be absent
He will miss it, and the glorious music will be broken and incomplete.

There is a common vice of self-conceit, but there is also a common vice
of excessive self-depreciation. "My Lord can do nothing with me!" Yes,
my Lord knows thee and needs thee! And by the power of His grace
thou canst accomplish wonders!

JANUARY The Seventeenth
SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT
"My sheep hear My voice!" --JOHN x. 19-30.
This is spiritual discernment. We may test our growth in grace by our
expertness in detecting the voice of our Lord. It is the skill of the saint
to catch "the still small voice" amid all the selfish clamours of the day,
and amid the far more subtle callings of the heart. It needs a good ear to
catch the voice of the Lord in our sorrows. I think it requires a better
ear to discern