THE COMFORTS 
OF GOD

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know. 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

* "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." 

—Martin Luther

* Men think God is destroying them because He is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord strikes concert pitch. It is not to break it that he stretches the string, but to use it tunefully.

* "Holy God, teach me this day how to worship! May my soul be upon its knees! May I discern Thy Presence, and be filled with holy reverence and fear! Teach me to pray. Amen." 

—J.H.Jowett

* "Teach me, Lord, to be patient, and help me to use every minute in Thy service, that of Thy gifts nothing be lost or wasted. Amen." 

By Wendy Greiner Lefko

I can hardly believe it! Our eldest son turns 16 this month! After all these years of parenting with my husband, I still find myself learning the fine art of communication. It is a vital skill in both a marriage and in parent-child relationships. Yet I find myself lacking, both as a learner and teacher of this relational tool. I was mildly disappointed the other day when our Kindergartner came home from school only to respond to my inquiry of "How was your day?" with the simple one word reply "Good". I thought only teenagers knew that one-word response! After further interrogation I was able to retrieve detailed information of his day, as well as his opinion of it. As with the older children, when I am able to get past the initial hesitation to open up and share the goings-on of the day, I find myself thrilled to hear seemingly insignificant details such as the color of the finger paint, a freshly learned word in a foreign language, or perhaps a new-found friendship. Details! I want details! As a mother, I love our children and want to know what’s going on in their lives and how they feel about it all.

So, too, we are important to our Heavenly Father. Though He knows everything about us, even more than we know about ourselves, He wants to hear it from us. He delights in our company! He desires for us, as His children, to come to Him, spend time with Him, and share our thoughts, feelings and concerns. When the lapses between our prayer times grow greater, He misses us. We tend to think our human frailties and problems are of little concern to Him because He is so great. Yet, just as He cares when a sparrow falls to the ground, so He cares to a greater degree when one of His children is hurting. Even the mundane events of the daily grind in our lives are important to Him. He wants to hear about it. He wants details! The more we share with Him, the deeper our relationship will grow, and the more we will be conformed to His image.

Just as my husband and I desire to spend time with our children and have them share their lives with us, so our Heavenly Father longs to spend more time with us. Each time I have to squeeze a little more information out of our kids than they are giving me, I am gently reminded of my need to spend more time talking with my Lord and sharing my life with Him every day.

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, Who daily bears our burdens" (Psalm 68:19).

By Rev. Larry W. Greiner

The home of an English family was discovered to be on fire, and it was believed that everyone was out but the baby. Bravely the mother went in to rescue her child from the burning building.

For years after, as the girl grew, the mother went about the house with her hands covered. Even the eldest of the servants had never seen her without the bandages. One day the daughter entered the room unexpectedly, and found her mother sitting with her hands bared. They were torn, scarred and disfigured. Immediately the mother tried to cover her hands as the girl approached, but it was too late. Holding up her wounded hands, the mother began to tell her story.

"When the fire was in the house, I fought my way through the flames to rescue you from your cradle. Wrapping you in a blanket, I dropped you through the window to someone below. Since I could not escape down the stairway, I had to climb out the window. My hands were badly burned. Then as I slipped and fell from the window I caught the trellis which tore at my flesh. The doctor did his best, but he could not remove the scars. My dear, these hands were torn for you."

The daughter sprang toward her mother. She took one hand and then the other, and buried her face in those hands as she kept saying, "They are beautiful hands! Beautiful hands!" What a perfect picture of a mother’s deep love!

The story illustrates in a beautiful way God's deep love for us. He sent His only Son into the fire of suffering on the cross to die for your sins and mine. Jesus came out with nail-print scars on his hands and a spear scar in his side. They are there for all eternity for us to gaze upon. Can you imagine seeing Him for the first time in Heaven as he shows you the scars and you hear Him say, "These hands were torn for you."

If you have never accepted God’s love and forgiveness for salvation, would you do it right now. Thank Him for the sacrifice He made for you on the cross. Open your heart and receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and turn from your sin. Eternal life can be yours because Jesus paid it all.

"Then Jesus said to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing" (John 20:27).

The most unthankful animal in all the realm of my acquaintance is the hog. Ever notice a hog eating acorns under a tree? What a benefactor to a hog is the oak! Its verdant foliage shields him from the blistering rays of the sun. The branches are its arms. The twigs are its fingers. These nimble and benevolent fingers drop their acorns one by one under the very nose of the hog. He eats them without the faintest idea as to where they come from. A hog has never been known to look up, so far as I know. His eyes are beamed to earth. His ears blind him to any vision of the sky. The hog takes everything for granted. In fact, he takes everything, period! He has no regard for other animals. He even pushes other hogs with his snout so as to get everything he can for himself.

The acorn drops and he grabs and eats it. He looks not up. He does not even know the tree is up there. All he knows about the tree is that it has a trunk against which he can scratch himself.

The hog eats, he sleeps, he snores, he grows fat, he reproduces his kind, he waddles off to the slaughter pen without a single thought of what it's all about. About him no poems are written, no songs are sung.

I am woefully depressed when I reflect how much like a hog a human at his worst can be. Man created in the image of his God, a little lower than the angels, with capacities for progress, for development, for improvement, for fellowship with the Infinite! And so often he will not even look up to say, "Thank You, God." 

"Forgive me, most gracious Lord and Father, if this day I have done or said anything to increase the pain of the world. Pardon the unkind word, the impatient gesture, the hard and selfish deed, the failure to show sympathy and kindly help where I had the opportunity, but missed it. Enable me so to live that I may daily do something to lessen the tide of human sorrow, and add to the sum of human happiness. Amen."