February 24

Songs From A Dust-heap!

Thy dead shall live!" "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs. — Isa 26:19

This cheery summons to awake and sing is addressed to those who dwell in the dust! The world is filled with them—those who dwell in the dark cells of disappointed love and faith, or who have failed in their life’s purpose, or who, like Bartimaeus, are blind and reduced to beggary. Hope has been painted as blind-folded, her head downcast, her lyre broken in her hand. Sitting on the axis of the earth, which is making its difficult way through the storm and cloud, she presses to her ear the one unbroken string, as though catching at the music of a better time. It is thus that in many lives string after string has become broken and failed, and they have come down to sit in the dust of death and despair.

It may be that you have lost all sense of God’s nearness and love—not because of any known sin, but through physical weakness, mental exhaustion, or the loneliness of sorrow and suffering. It may be that you have been seeking an experience of God, instead of God Himself. You have been seeking Him without, whilst He is within.

It may be that you are perplexed by the mystery of unanswered prayer. “O my God, I cry in the day-time, and Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.” Yet no answer comes back from the Infinite, and your prayers seem like vessels lost at sea.

It may be that your life has not realised its early ideals. As the years go forward they carry us into disillusionment and heart-break. Life has its prizes and rewards, but they are not for us!

To all such we pass on Isaiah’s words: “Awake and sing, for thy dew is as the dew of light.” The dew is used here of the grace and love of God. Instead of dust there will be dew, which steals so gently and silently over the earth. The more dry and sapless a patch is, the more tenderly does the dew caress it! Even to graveyards it extends its gracious operations, bidding them awake and sing with the certainty of Resurrection.

Sing! because your moods, which the Psalmist called “down-sittings,” do not affect your standing in Christ. We are all subject to fits of despondency. “The Lord hath chastened me sore, but He has not given me over unto death. Open to me the gates of joy, that I may enter into them, and praise the Lord!”

Prayer

We thank Thee that many evils that we dreaded have not come to us. Storms have expended themselves outside the circle of our lives. Thy mercy has been greater than our sin, Thy supplies larger than our need, Thy grace more abundant than the pressure of temptation. Amen.