Friday, October 16, 2015

WE-Like Hagar and Ishmael

With Thee is the fountain of life.
Psalm 36:9


"There are times in our spiritual experience when human counsel or sympathy, or religious ordinances, fail to comfort or help us.

Why does our gracious God permit this?

Perhaps it is because we have been living too much without Him, and He therefore takes away everything upon which we have been in the habit of depending, that He may drive us to Himself. It is a blessed thing to live at the fountain head.

While our skin-bottles are full,
we are content,
like Hagar and Ishmael
to go into the wilderness;
but when those are dry,
nothing will serve us but
"Thou God seest me." 

 Anything becomes an idol when it keeps us away from God: 

 The prodigal was never safer than when he was driven to his father's bosom, because he could find sustenance nowhere else.

Our Lord favors us with a famine in the land that it may make us seek after Himself the more.

Beloved, when we are brought to a thirsting condition, we are sure to turn to the fountain of life with eagerness."
Charles Spurgeon