Grace, Mercy, and peace be to you. I am glad that you follow closely after Christ in this dark and cloudy time. It is a good thing to sell the things of this world in order to buy Him, for when all these days are over we will find that it was a good investment to have a part in Christ. I confidently believe that His enemies will be His footstool, and what are now growing flowers will be dead, withered grass. The honour and the glory will fall off many things that for a time appear beautiful.

It would be foolish to think that Christ and the Gospel would come and sit down at our fireside. No, we must leave our comfortable warm houses and seek after Christ and His Gospel. It is not the sunny side of Christ that we must expect, and we must not forsake him if we lack it. Let us set our faces against whatever we find in life, until He and we are though the briers and prickly bushes and on dry ground. Our soft nature would prefer to be carried through the troubles of this life in Christ’s arms. But it is His wisdom, who knows what we’re made of, that His bairns go with wet and cold feet to heaven. Oh, how sweet a thing it would be for us, if we would learn how to make our burdens light, by preparing our hearts for the burden, which requires us to make our Lord’s will the law of our hearts.

I find Christ and His cross not unpleasant or troublesome guests, as men would call them. No, I think patience makes the water Christ gives us good wine, and His dross silver and gold. We have a good reason for continuing to wait: before long our Master will be back for us and shine His light into the whole world, making visible the blacks and whites. Happy are those who will be found ready. Our hour-glass doesn’t have long enough to run for us to become weary. In fact, time itself will dissolve our cares and sorrow. Our heaven is in the bud and growing up until the harvest. Why shouldn’t we persevere, seeing that our whole life time is a few grains of sand? Therefore I commend Christ to you, as your last-living and longest-living Husband, the staff of your old age. Let Him now have the rest of your days. Don’t worry about the storm when you’re sailing in Christ’s ship: no passenger will ever fall overboard. Even the most sea-sick passenger is sure to come to land safely.

Written on March 13, 1637 by Samuel Rutherford in a letter to Jean Brown.

Do we prize it in our judgments? Do we receive it into our hearts? Do we fear the loss of the Word preached more than the loss of peace and trade (our jobs)? Is it the removal of the ark that troubles us?

Again, do we attend to the Word with reverential devotion? When the judge is giving his charge on the bench, all attend. When the Word is preached, the great God is giving us his charge. Do we listen to it as to a matter of life and death? This is a good sign that we love the Word.

Again, do we love the holiness of the Word (Psalms 119:140)? The Word is preached to beat down sin and advance holiness. Do we love it for its spirituality and purity? Many love the Word preached only for its eloquence and notion (intellectual content). They come to a sermon as to a music lecture (Ezekiel 33:31-32) or as to a garden to pick flowers, but not to have their lusts subdued or their hearts bettered. These are like a foolish woman who paints her face but neglects her health.

Again, do we love the convictions of the Word? Do we love the Word when it comes home to our conscience and shoots arrows of reproof at our sins? It is the minister’s duty sometime to reprove. He who can speak smooth words in the pulpit, but does not know how to reprove, is like a sword with a fine hilt without an edge. ‘Rebuke them sharply’ (Titus 2:15). Dip the nail in oil, reprove in love, but strike the nail home. Now Christian, when the Word touches your sin and says, ‘You art the man’, do you love the reproof? Can you bless God that ‘the sword of the Spirit’ has divided between you and your lusts? This is indeed a sign of grace and shows that you are a lover of the Word.

A corrupt heart loves the comforts of the Word, but not the reproofs: ‘They hate him that rebuketh in the gate’ (Amos 5:10). ‘Their eyes flash with fire!’ Like venomous creatures that at the least touch spit poison, ‘when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth’ (Acts 7:54). When Stephen touched them to the quick, they were mad and could not endure it.

The Godly Man’s Picture, Thomas Watson, Banner of Truth Trust, (originally published in 1666)

When the methods of providence are dark and intricate and we are quite at a loss what God is about to do with us, “his way is in the sea, and his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known,” clouds and darkness are round about him, a meek and quiet spirit acquiesces in an assurance that all things shall work together for good to us if we love God, though we cannot apprehend how or which way. It teaches us to follow God with an implicit faith, as Abraham did when he went out not knowing very well whom he followed (Heb 11:8). It quiets us with this, that though what he doeth “we know not now,” yet we “shall know hereafter” (John 13:7). When poor Job was brought to that dismal plunge that he could no way trace the footsteps of the divine providence, but was almost lost in that labyrinth, how quietly does he sit down with this thought, “But he knows the way I take; when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:8-9).

Meekness, in the school of Christ, is one of the “fruits of the Spirit” (Gal 5:22-23). It is a grace (both gratis data, ‘freely given,’ and gratum faciens, ‘rendering kind’), wrought by the Holy Ghost both as a sanctifier and as a comforter in the hearts of all true believers, teaching and enabling them at all times to keep their passions under the conduct and government of religion and right reason. I observe that it is wrought in the hearts of all true believers because though there are some rough and knotty pieces that the Spirit works upon, whose natural temper is unhappily sour and harsh, which are long in the squaring; yet wheresoever there is true grace, there is a disposition to strive against, and strength in some measure to conquer, that distemper. And though in this, as in other graces, an absolute sinless perfection cannot be expected in this present state, yet we are to labor after it, and press toward it.

Matthew Henry, The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit –reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria Publications – pg 21-22 (first published in 1698).

“… sometimes animals play. If nature is inexorably locked in a battle for the survival of the fittest, where did frolicking come from?

Humans are probably most familiar with the playful behavior of dogs. Some breeds seem to have a greater affinity for playing, but dogs are generally fond of frolicking, either with people, other dogs, or even other animals. In a National Geographic video documentary series “Unlikely Animal Friends,” Surya the orangutan met Rosco the hound dog at a river park, and the two “carry on like long lost friends,” wrestling, running, hugging, rolling, and being silly. Did God engineer this behavior as an instinct, or is it an accidental byproduct of natural forces?”    from ICR – read more here!

O Lord,

Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed in thy presence, in thy service, to thy glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit,
to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire
to show forth thy praise,
testify thy love,
advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

Give me grace to sanctify me,
thy comforts to cheer,
thy wisdom to watch,
thy right hand to guide,
thy counsel to instruct,
thy law to judge,
thy presence to stabilize.

May thy fear be my awe, thy triumphs my joy.

The Valley of Vision, A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions (Banner of Truth) – pg 206-207