MUSINGS

ABOVE THE STORM Flying through the tropics by night we saw, far below, a violent storm.

Vivid flashes of lightning zigzagged through great banks of cloud. But where we were all was calm and clear, the stars shining like beacons in the sky.

We all have to face storms in our lives, and how good it is that the presence of Jesus can be known in them—“About the fourth watch of the night he comes to them walking on the sea”, Mark 6: 48. What comfort there is in such an experience!—His presence in the trouble.

But there is also the fact that we can be lifted in spirit out of the area of trouble into the peace and calm of His presence. Solomon, in his prayer in 1 Kings 9, mentions all kinds of disasters and troubles and, like a refrain, he repeats his request that in all these circumstances God would hear the prayer of His people from “the heavens, the settled place of thy dwelling”. All is settled, all is peace, there. As Mr. Darby’s hymn says—

‘Our hearts resort to where Thou liv’st

In heav’n’s unclouded rays’.

HEAVENLY COLOUR Let us not be like the chameleon, changing our colour according to our surroundings. We watched one in South Africa. It was difficult at first to find him, so well did he merge with the green shoots of the tree. When coaxed on to a darker area he began to change colour to tone in with it.

A christian is to appear as a christian at school, at work—wherever he may be. Let us not change our colour to please others, or to escape the reproach of Christ. Israelites wore tassels on the corners of their garments, and a lace of blue (see Numbers 15: 38), so wherever you saw an Israelite you would know that he belonged to a nation linked with heaven. Mr. Taylor remarked as to that, ‘As we turn round the corner, maybe on the Monday after the Lord’s day, we do not lose the heavenly blue; we are not one thing on Sunday and another thing on Monday, we are heavenly on both days’ (N.S. Vol. 84 p.60).

FCM