MUSINGS

PREPARED PLACES “I go to prepare you a place”—what comfort these words of Jesus in John 14 have afforded believers down the centuries! What a place it must be that His own hands have prepared, and what delights abound in that abode which He Himself has furnished for the objects of His love. More than that, ‘I am coming again and shall receive you to myself’. It is not only the place, but the Person. “Thus we shall be always with the Lord”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 17. Faith and hope lay hold of that prospect of perfect joy and peace.

Revelation 12: 6 brings before us the woman, figure of the faithful Jewish remnant after the church has been raptured. The dragon seeks to devour her child and she flees into the wilderness, “where she has there a place prepared of God, that they should nourish her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days”. In every hour of testing and pressure there is a prepared place in which we may nestle under the wings of divine comfort and protection. David said, “So the sons of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings”, Psalm 36: 7.

CIRCLES OF BLESSING Flying over the arid, sun-baked areas of Colorado and Nebraska, U.S.A., the visitor is puzzled to see perfectly circular areas of fresh green growth standing out from the barren surroundings. On enquiry he learns that these are farmlands irrigated by huge water pipelines which revolve around central pivots. It is a reminder of how heaven views local companies of saints—and Christian households too—areas of life, liberty, and freshness, watered from heaven by the service of the Holy Spirit, amid a world of drought.

May we each contribute to the maintenance of these happy, prosperous, and fruitful conditions. Isaac said of Jacob, “The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jehovah hath blessed”, Genesis 27: 27.

FCM