May 25

God recompenses wisely

“I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus . . . I have suffered the loss of all things . . . that I may win Christ . . . That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:8-10).

A Christian never really loses if his gains exceed his losses. So we must not look at what we give up for Christ, but what we gain by the losing.

Straight through my heart this fact today,
By Truth’s own hand is driven:
God never takes one thing away,
But something else is given.

I did not know in earlier years
This law of love and kindness;
I only mourned through bitter tears
My loss, in sorrow’s blindness.

But, ever following each regret
O’er some departed treasure,
My sad repining heart was met
With unexpected pleasure.

I thought it only happened so;
But Time this truth has taught me—
No least thing from my life can go,
But something else is brought me.

It is the Law, complete, sublime;
And now with Faith unshaken,
In patience I but bide my time
When any joy is taken.

No matter if the crushing blow
May for the moment down me,
Still, behind it waits Love, I know,
With some new gift to crown me.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

The blow most dreaded often falls to break from off our limbs a chain.

God deals out our comforts and our sorrows with exact, unerring hand, in number, weight and measure. Hence we have not either joy or adversity a grain too little or too much.
—A. Toplady.

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