August 2

The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He drives out the enemy before you, giving the command, ‘Destroy him!’ — Deut 33:27 BSB

Look how Moses brought before the people the eternity of God. He doesn’t concern himself with time. What is time, after all? It’s just a fragment, like the foam on the surface of the sea compared to the vast ocean. The ocean is eternity; time is merely the foam on the waves. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” And if the everlasting arms are under God’s people, they are there for a reason. God allows affliction after affliction to humble the soul, so that it may fall into and rest upon those everlasting arms, discovering how firm and strong they are. Haven’t you found it to be so? Don’t deny your experience. How many trials in your life has God brought you through? How clearly the Lord has appeared in specific situations, so that your doubts and unbelief were silenced, at least for a time. Faith saw God’s hand so clearly that you felt you could never doubt again. Haven’t you experienced sweet support in times of illness and suffering? Haven’t there been precious moments when you could even bless God for his afflicting hand?

You’ve found that strength was always given according to your need, that with every trial came the power to bear it, and that out of your deepest afflictions came your greatest blessings. Why are you not in hell? Don’t you deserve to be? Why are you still here, with a good hope through grace, waiting on the Lord more eagerly than those who watch for the morning? If those everlasting arms have supported you before, won’t they support you again? Could they be called everlasting if they would ever let you fall? Rest upon them, and you will find how strong they truly are.