YESTERDAY
"You shall not go out
with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and
the God of
Security from Yesterday. ". . . God requires an account of what is past" (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year, we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But, God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ." This is a gracious revelation -- that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard." And God's hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. "You shall
not go out with haste . . . " As we go forth
into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful
delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtless-ness. But, let us go
out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us.
Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we
have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive
thoughtfulness for the future. Let
the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave
the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible
future with Him.
Taken from My Utmost for His
Highest by Oswald Chambers. copyright 1935 by Dodd
Mead &
“I said to the man at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.” And the man replied, “Put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than a light, and safer than a known way.” --Selected—