Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: October 19th

’’Blessed is the man that endureth temptation." - James 1:12.

Blessed is the man that endureth whatever ordeal the Lord may see fit that he should be Subjected to, for the discovery of his heart. These temptations are simply processes of examination; they are opportunities which the Lord giveth us of verifying our professions.

To men that boast of their inward goodness and strength, Providence often seems to say, " You have thought yourself obliged to speak of your own good qualities, because the vicissitudes of your life were not such as to bring out the evidence of these qualities; but I will now so order events that your goodness shall have a perfect opportunity of revealing itself."

Men that praise themselves, ought never to find any fault when disappointments and disasters befall them; for if they indeed possess that strength of mind and superiority of character of which they boast, they will feel these trials little and their inward excellence will be enabled to speak for itself. In their case we too often see that pride cometh before a fall. Men are continually clamoring - without being aware of it - for some severer condition of life; they are continually challenging circumstances to assume a more forbidding and hostile attitude; they find themselves in an inadequate sphere; they are conscious of virtues that have never yet found expression. They urge God (by self-laudation) to put them into the fire and see if they will not come forth as gold.

Now the Christian does not boast, but he makes a profession. He professes to have renounced the idea of his own goodness, and to be as dependent on God for moral goodness as for physical. God says, "It is well; but men will not believe thee; I will put thee in a situation calculated to elicit the full evidence of this." The Lord perhaps raises him then to considerable distinction; all men praise him, and it is interesting to see the Christian preserving his humility and prayer-fullness in the midst of this fiery trial. He professes to fear God rather than man. Then men bring great rocks and say, " Fear God, by all means; all that we ask is that you should give up an infinitesimal part of what you call the fear of God, and do our will in one most insignificant particular; otherwise we will grind you to powder beneath these rocks." " Grind," is his reply; and we see that his profession was not in vain. He professes to have a spirit of submission to all the appointments of the Lord. Then the Lord proceeds to deal with him in a way that seems to him altogether strange and unaccountable and uncalled for. The things that befall him seem to him not to have been in the bond. It strikes him that submission is hardly the thing called for and that he does well to be angry. But happily he considers that the providence of God has taken this provocative aspect for the very purpose of enabling the spirit of submission in him to manifest itself more unimpeachably; and so he endures.

I wish to remember always, and especially at the time when my will is suffering opposition, when a stone seems to be given in reply to my request for bread, that the stone so given is much better than bread; the opportunity of glorifying God by yielding my will to his, is much more valuable than the good then withheld. Blessed is not the man that is exempt from trial; but blessed is the man that endures it, maintaining to the end his patience, zeal, hope, love and joy.

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