6. Devotional: Waiting For Hope

Devotional: Waiting For Hope

Author: George Matheson (1842-1906)

For we through the Spirit wait for the hope 

of righteousness by faith. (Galatians 5:5)

    There are times when things look very dark to me-so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence-that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

    There is no patience so hard as that which endures, "as seeing him who is invisible"; it is the waiting for hope.

    Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father‵s will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

    Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, "To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still." I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope.

4. Hymn: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Hymn: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Author: George Matheson (1842-1906)

(Vocal)

(Music)

(Sheet Music)

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
    I rest my weary soul in Thee;
    I give Thee back the life I owe,
    That in Thine ocean depths its flow
    May richer, fuller be.

2. O Light that followest all my way,
    I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
    My heart restores its borrowed ray,
    That in Thy sunshine‵s blaze its day
    May brighter, fairer be.

3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
    I cannot close my heart to Thee;
    I trace the rainbow through the rain,
    And feel the promise is not vain
    That morn shall tearless be.

4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
    I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
    I lay in dust life‵s glory dead,
    And from the ground there blossoms red
    Life that shall endless be.

5. Hymn: O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

Hymn: O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

Author: George Matheson (1842-1906)

(Vocal)

(Music)

(Sheet Music)

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,

    I rest my weary soul in Thee;

    I give Thee back the life I owe,

    That in Thine ocean depths its flow

    May richer, fuller be.

2. O Light that follow'st all my way,

    I yield my flickering torch to Thee;

    My heart restores its borrowed ray,

    That in Thy sunshine’s glow its day

    May brighter, fairer be.

3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,

    I cannot close my heart to Thee;

    I trace the rainbow through the rain,

    And feel the promise is not vain

    That morn shall tearless be.

4. O Cross that liftest up my head,

    I dare not ask to fly from Thee;

    I lay in dust, life’s glory dead,

    And from the ground there blossoms red

    Life that shall endless be.

4. Devotional: Run With Patience

Run With Patience

by George Matheson (1842-1906)

Let us run with patience (Hebrews 12:1). 

    To run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve. 

    There is a patience which I believe to be harder - the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing! 

    Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service - in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience." 

    This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running - a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow - a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard. 

37. Devotional: God's Music Lesson

God's Music Lesson

by George Matheson 

And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. (Revelation 14:3)

    There are songs which can only be learned in the valley. No art can teach them; no master of music can convey them; no rules of voice can make them perfectly sung. Their music is in the heart. They are songs of memory, of personal experience. They bring out their burden from the shadows of the past; they mount on the wings of yesterday. What race that never felt the pains of exile could sing that old Scottish song, "Oh why left I my hame!" It could only come from the memory of storm and stress driving the wanderer across many a sea.

    St. John says that even in heaven there will be a song that can only be fully sung by the sons of earth—the strain of redemption. Doubtless it is a song of triumph—a hymn of victory to the Christ who has made us free. But the sense of triumph must come from the memory ot the chain. No angel, no archangel, can sing it so sweetly as my soul. To sing it as I sing it they must pass through my exile, and this they cannot do. None can learn it but the children of the Cross.   

    And so, my soul, thou art receiving a music lesson from thy Father. Thou art being educated for the choir invisible. There are parts of the symphony that none can take but thee. There are chords too minor for the angels. There may be heights in the symphony which are beyond thy scale—heights which the angels alone can reach. But there are depths which belong to thee, and can only be touched by thee. Thy Father is training thee for the part the angels cannot sing ; and the school is sorrow. I have heard men say that He sends thy sorrow to prove thee; nay, He sends thy sorrow to educate thee, to train thee for the choir invisible.   

    In the night He is preparing thy song. In the valley He is tuning thy voice. In the cloud He is deepening thy chords. In the storm He is enriching thy pathos. In the rain He is sweetening thy melody. In the cold He is moulding thine expression. In the transition from hope to fear He is perfecting thy lights and shades. Despise not thy school of sorrow, O my soul; it will give thee a unique part in the universal song.