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led an up-and-down life because of this kind of faith; it was a faith that de pended upon circumstances. This is not the kind of faith God wants us to have. The world says, “Seeing is believing,” but God wants us to believe in order to see. The Psalmist said, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Do you believe God only when the cir cumstances are favorable, or do you be lieve no matter what the circumstances may be?— Circumstantial Faith. —o— December 3— “Make this valley full of ditches” (2 Kings 3:16). Necessity is the opportunity for great blessing. This was a time of tremendous need. The army was perishing and help less, but the prophet insists first of all upon still further emphasizing their need. He bids them dig a lot of ditches in the valley. These ditches represented their desperate need. What is a ditch? There is nothing beautiful about it; it is just a great open space dug in the earth. How finely it represents our deepest needs! We are not to come to God with our floral offerings and our beautiful self- congratulations, but with our great and awful needs. We have them all right, but let us see them, acknowledge them, bring them into the light, and lay them at His feet. Let us lay open before Him those secret rents and chasms in our past or present that fill us with dismay. Tell Him the very worst; keep nothing back, and surely our extremity will be God’s opportunity, and our necessity shall become the mount of blessing and the door of hope.— Earnests of the Coming Age. . —o— December 4—“He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his being shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7 :38). Some of us are shivering and wonder ing why the Holy Spirit does not fill us. We have plenty coming in, but we do not give it out. Give out the blessing that you have, start larger plans for service and blessing, and you will soon find that the Holy Ghost is before you, and He will present you with blessings for service, and give you all that He can trust you to give away to others. There is a beautiful fact in nature which has its spiritual parallels. There is no music so heavenly as an Aeolian harp, and an Aeolian harp is nothing but a set of musical chords ar ranged in harmony, and then left to be touched by the unseen fingers of the wan dering winds. And as the breath of heaven floats over the chords, it is said that notes almost divine float out upon the air, as if a choir of angels were wan dering around and touching the strings. And so it is possible to keep our hearts so open to the touch of the Holy Spirit that He can play upon them at will, as we quietly wait in the pathway of His ser vice.—iDoyi of Heaven Upon Earth.
we face these precious facts, and believe them because God says they are facts, God will take care of our feelings. God never gives feeling to encourage us to trust Him; God never gives feeling to show that we have already and utterly trusted Him. God gives feeling only when He sees that we trust Him apart from all feeling, resting on His own Work, and on His own faithfulness to His promise. Never till then, can the feeling (which is from God) possibly come; and God will give the feeling in such a measure and at such a time as His love sees best for the individual case. We must choose between facing toward our feelings and facing toward God’s facts. Our feelings may be as uncertain as the sea or the shifting sands. God’s facts are as certain as the Rock of Ages, even Christ Himself, who is the same yes terday, today and forever.— Selected. — o — December 1— “It shall be given you in that same hour” (Matt. 10:19). How often hast thou found thyself, at the entrance into a duty, becalmed as a ship, which at first setting sail hath hardly wind to swell its sails while under the shore and shadow of the trees, but meets a fresh gale of wind when out into the open sea! Yea, didst thou never launch out into duty as the apostles to sea with the wind in thy face, as if the Spirit of God, instead of helping thee on, meant to drive thee back, and yet hast found Christ walking to thee before the duty was done, and a prosperous voyage made of it at last? Abraham saw not the ram which God had provided for His sac rifice, until he was in the mount. In the mount of prayer God is seen, even when the Christian does often go up the hill toward duty with a heavy heart because as yet he can have no sight of Him. Turn not therefore back, but go on with courage; He may be nearer than thou thinkest.— Gurnall. — o — December 2— “Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon ■ forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel; but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he game them their request; but sent leanness into their soul" (Psa. 106:12-15). We read of Moses, that “he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” Exactly the opposite was true of the children of Israel in this record. They endured only when the circumstances were favorable; they were largely governed by the things that appealed to their senses, in place of resting in the invisible and eternal God. In the present day there are those who live intermittent Christian lives because they have become occupied with the out ward, and center in circumstances, in place of centering in God. God wants us more and more to see Him in every thing, and to call nothing small if it bears us His message. Here we read of the children of Israel, “Then they believed his words.” They did not believe till after they saw--when they saw Him work, then they believed. They really doubted God when they came to the Red Sea; but when God opened the way and led them across and they saw Pharaoh and his host drowned—“then they believed.” They
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