Evening, January 31
Go To Morning Reading
“Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi.”
2 Samuel 18:23
Running is not everything, there is much in the way which we select:
a swift foot over hill and down dale will not keep pace with a slower
traveller upon level ground. How is it with my spiritual journey,
am I labouring up the hill of my own works and down into the ravines
of my own humiliations and resolutions, or do I run by the plain way
of “Believe and live”? How blessed is it to wait upon the Lord by faith! The soul runs
without weariness, and walks without fainting, in the way of believing.
Christ Jesus is the way of life, and he is a plain way, a pleasant
way, a way suitable for the tottering feet and feeble knees of trembling
sinners: am I found in this way, or am I hunting after another track
such as priestcraft or metaphysics may promise me? I read of the way
of holiness, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err
therein: have I been delivered from proud reason and been brought
as a little child to rest in Jesus’ love and blood? If so, by God’s grace I shall outrun the strongest runner who chooses any other
path. This truth I may remember to my profit in my daily cares and
needs. It will be my wisest course to go at once to my God, and not
to wander in a roundabout manner to this friend and that. He knows
my wants and can relieve them, to whom should I repair but to himself
by the direct appeal of prayer, and the plain argument of the promise.
“Straightforward makes the best runner.” I will not parlay with the servants, but hasten to their master.
In reading this passage, it strikes me that if men vie with each other
in common matters, and one outruns the other, I ought to be in solemn
earnestness so to run that I may obtain. Lord, help me to gird up
the loins of my mind, and may I press forward towards the mark for
the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus.