Sometimes a light surprises...

This morning Joey Pipa's words came to me (or were they Rick's? No matter, I heard them in the worship Lord's day past)--that if we think Satan tempts our minds, certainly we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit can speak to our minds, guide us through our thoughts even more so. He does indwell the Believer. What an outrageously delicious thought this is to me. In my warfare against the flesh, the world, and the devil, I don't give proper place to the Holy Spirit in my mind. I thought perhaps I would do a study of scripture about these things, and then I picked up Daily Light.

Now I have not been a big fan of Daily Light, though it was my very own mother's "birthday book", sitting in a rack above our kitchen sink, marked up from day to day with the people she knew whose birthdays were on that day. Reforming, I came to disappreciate scripture taken out of its context. My sister Marilee had given my father a small leather-bound copy of Daily Light in 1999 which I have kept since his death. And I have been using it since the end of December. It often spurs me on to look up a context, and it often reminds me of where various scriptures are located.

Moments after my decision to start studying what the scripture has to say about the voice of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's ear, I read these scriptures:

For this is God, our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to death. Psalm 48:14

O Lord, You are my God. I will exalt You, I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things; Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. Isaiah 25:1

Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup. Psalm 16:5

He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:3-4

You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:23-26

Our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Psalm 33:21

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; do not forsake the works of Your hands. Psalm 138:8

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in His wings. When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again a season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain. In holy contemplation we sweetly then pursue the theme of God's salvation and find it ever new. Set free from present sorrow we cheerfully can say "Let the unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may." It can bring with it nothing but He will bear us through; who gives the lilies clothing will clothe His people too. Beneath the spreading heavens no creature but is fed, and He who feeds the ravens will give His children bread. Though vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit shall bear, though all the field should wither, nor flocks nor herds be there; Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice, For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice. (Wm. Cowper)