HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div                                                                  [wpedon id=”36898″ align=”right”]

“What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” (Matthew 10:27).

Our Lord is constantly taking us into the dark, that He may tell us things. Into the dark of the shadowed home, where bereavement has drawn the blinds; into the dark of the lonely, desolate life, where some infirmity closes us in from the light and stir of life; into the dark of some crushing sorrow and disappointment. Into the dark of the secret room where He speaks to us alone. Into the caves of the mountain in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for that special communication. Out of the dark, He speaks and sends forth the light to follow. He was like the pillar of fire in the night to the children of Israel a pillar of cloud in the day. Yes, brethren, in these times He is the supernatural working in our midst.

Then He tells us His secrets, great and wonderful, eternal and infinite; He causes the eye which has become dazzled by the glare of earth to behold the heavenly constellations; and the car to detect the undertones of His voice, which is often drowned amid the tumult of earth’s strident cries.

But such revelations always imply a corresponding responsibility ‘that speak ye in the light and proclaim upon the housetops.”

We are not meant to always linger in the dark, or stay in the closet; presently we shall be summoned to take our place in the rush and the storm of life; and when that moment comes, we are to speak and proclaim what we have learned.

This gives a new meaning to suffering, the saddest element in which is often its apparent aimlessness. “How useless I am!” “What am I doing for the betterment of men?” “Wherefore this waste of the precious spikenard of my soul?”

Such are the desperate laments of the sufferer. But God has a purpose in it all. He has withdrawn His child to the higher altitudes of fellowship, that he may hear God speaking face to face, and bear the message to his fellows at the mountain foot.

Were the forty days wasted that Moses spent on the Mount, or the period spent at Horeb by Elijah or the years spent in Arabia by Paul? Are your days wasted during the time you had set aside for prayer and fasting? Did you hear from heaven the still small voice that calls you to a better place?

There is no short cut to the life of faith, which is the all-vital condition of a holy and victorious life. We must have periods of lonely meditation and fellowship with God. That our souls should have their mountains of fellowship, their valley of quiet rest beneath the shadow of a great rock, their nights beneath the stars, when darkness has veiled the material and silenced the stir of human life, and has opened the view of the infinite and eternal, is as indispensable as that our bodies should have food.

Thus alone can the sense of God’s presence become the fixed possession of the soul, enabling it to say repeatedly, with the Psalmist, “Thou art near, 0 God.” Yes, brethren, He is nearer than we can ever imagine. With the true sense of His presence, we yearn for a closer walk with Him in these trying times. Bless the Lord

“Some hearts, like evening primroses, open more beautifully in the shadows of life.”Do not walk away but towards the darkness which shall turn into light. Lead Thou me on to the Rock that is higher than I. Hallelujah