JOHN xiv. 15-31.
And so even the road is to have the home-feeling in it. "_I will not leave you orphans._" Yes; there is to be something of home even in the way to it. I find something of Devonshire even in Dorsetshire; Shropshire gives me a taste of Wales. My Lord will not leave me comfortless. Heaven runs over, and I find its bounty before I arrive at its gate. The "Valley of Baca" becomes "a well."
And there are to be wonderful visions to speed the pilgrim's feet. "_I will manifest Myself unto him._" At unexpected corners the glory will break! We shall be assuming that we have picked up a common traveller, and suddenly we shall discover it is the Lord, for He will be made known to us "in the breaking of bread." And at many "risings" of the road, where the climbing is stiff and burdensome, we shall be inspired with many a glorious view, and we shall see "the land that is very far off."
The one condition is, that I keep His word. If I am obedient, He will appear unto me, and the humdrum road will shine with miracles of grace.
MARCH The Fifth
2 CORINTHIANS v. 1-9.
At present we live in a tent--"_the earthly house of this tabernacle._" And often the tent is very rickety. There are rents through which the rain enters, and it trembles ominously in the great storm. Some tents are frail from the very beginning, half-rotten when they are put up, and they have no defence even against the breeze. But even the strongest tent becomes weather-worn and threadbare, and in the long run it "falls in a heap!" And what then?
We shall exchange the frail tent for the solid house! "_If the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens._" When we are unclothed we shall find ourselves clothed with our house which is from heaven. The glory of this transition can only be confessed by "the saints in light." To awake, and discover that the creaking, breaking cords are left behind, that all the leakages are over, that we are no longer exposed to the cutting wind, that pain is passed, and sickness, and death--this must be a wonder of inconceivable ecstasy!
And "absent from the body" we shall be "present with the Lord."
MARCH The Sixth