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GOD’S RICH SUPPLY

Human nature is a mass of wants. The earliest cry of infancy means want of food, or sleep, or relief from pain. The silent appeal of old age in its arm-chair, is for a daily supply of daily necessaries. Columns of our daily journals are filled with the catalogue of “wants.” The chief purpose of all trade, manufactures and commerce, is to supply the various needs of humanity; and God’s grandest ministration of love is to supply the endless necessities of his dependent children.

What a glorious promise that is which Paul records in his letter to the generous Phillippians. They had been kind to him, and he writes back to them, “My God will supply all your need according to his riches in glory, by Jesus Christ.” That is a divine promise, made to be kept. I can put that away where I put my U.S. bonds, with a comfortable certainly of no defalcation. This passage is one of the “Government Securities” of heaven. It is my God who issued the promise; my own personal Father. He does not bind himself to give me all I may lust after; no, not even all I may pray for. Many of my wants are purely artificial, and born of selfishness. I may crave wealth, and he may see that my soul would be richer if I were poor. I may ask for some promotion, and he may know that my way to holiness lies through a valley of humiliation and disappointment. So he only agrees to give me what I need, which is a very different thing from what I may be craving.—T. L. Cuyler.

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— January, 1884 —