” Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Psalm 103:13
He being our Father, we are His sons. Now are we the sons of God, etc. 1John 3:2 And, as sons:
“You have not for the second time acquired the consciousness of being–a consciousness which fills you with terror. But you have acquired a deep inward conviction of having been adopted as sons–a conviction which prompts us to cry aloud, “Abba! our Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness, along with our own spirits, to the fact that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs too–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ; if indeed we are sharers in Christ’s sufferings, in order that we may also be sharers in His glory.” Romans 8:15-17 Weymouth translation
“That you should again be afraid, or be subjected to servile fear” This implies that in their former state under the Law, they were in a state of servitude, and that the tendency of it was merely to produce alarm. Every sinner is subject to such fear. He has everything of which to be alarmed. God is angry with him; his conscience will trouble him; and he has everything to apprehend in death and in eternity. But it is not so with the Christian.” Barnes Notes
2Timothy 1:7 ‘For the Spirit which God has given us is not a spirit of cowardice, but one of power and of love and of sound judgement. “
“Alone”
“The hill was steep, but cheered along the way by converse sweet, I mounted on the thought that so it might be till the height was reached , but suddenly a narrow winding path appeared, and then the master said , my child , here thou will safest walk with me alone .”
“I trembled , yet my heart’s deep trust replied, “so be it Lord.” He took my feeble hand in His, accepting thus my will to yield Him All, come and to find All in him. One long, dark moment, and no friend I saw, save Jesus only.”
“But oh ! So tenderly he led me on and up , and spoke to me with such words of cheer, such secret whisperings of his wondrous love, that soon I told him all my grief and fear , and leaned on his strong arm confidingly.”
“And then I found my footsteps quickened, and light ineffable, the rugged way illumined , such light as only can be seen in close companionship with God.”
A little while, and we shall meet again, the loved and lost , but in the rapturous joy of greetings, such as here we cannot know, and happy song, and heavenly embraces.
“And tender recollections rushing back of Pilgrim life, methinks one memory more dear and sacred than the rest, shall rise.”
“And we who gather in the golden streets, shall oft be stirred to speak with grateful love of that dark day when Jesus bade us climb some narrow steep, leaning on him alone.”
Deuteronomy 32:10 -12 reminds us, “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. “
Chuck Smith writes, “…how does the mother eagle teach the little eaglets how to fly? By kicking them out of the nest. Now the little eaglets are very comfortable in the nest. And the nests were usually high up on the sides of the cliffs. But the mother eagle will kick the little eaglets out of the nest when the time has come to learn how to fly. And the little eaglet will start flapping its wings uncoordinated and all, and start falling as it’s flapping and just start falling on down. And the mother eaglet is fluttering over it but then it swoops, just about the time it gets to the rocks, it swoops underneath the little eaglet and it catches it on its wings and it bears it back up to the nest until the next lesson.”
Chuck Smith tells this story, “A manager of one of Thrifty stores, had received threats upon his life and upon his family and so he asked for a transfer from that store but they refused to do it. And he said, “Well, either transfer me or fire me”. And so they fired him after thirteen years. And he said, “Lord, what’s going to happen to me now? Lord, what’s going on? And he was flapping and screaming. But he went to work as a salesman for another corporation and he was blessed. He soon became the sales manager in a few months time, and when the owners decided to sell the corporation, he was then in a position to buy it. And he now is the owner and president of this large corporation. Now you see that’s what God had in mind for all the time. But as long as he had his job security and was working for Thrifty, he was not looking for a job. Now God had this position for him, but how is God ever going to get him to this position? The only way is to stir up the nest, to get him fired from his job at Thriftys.
We so love the safety of the nest, of the routine, of the comfortable. Our Father will however have His way. He has a plan for our growth. Like eaglets learning to fly, we operate in some risky business until there exists no risk at all. His ways are perfect. Love ya
