Daily Devotionals
Devotional: March 19th
"A bruised reed shall he not break." - Matthew 12:20.
In carrying out a great enterprise, individual suffering is very little regarded. Revolutions are not generally effected without the immolation of many lives. Thousands, how many thousands, of human reeds were first bruised, then broken, and thrown to the winds of the Crimea, that Sevastopol might be taken. And can it be that Christ, in going forth to the conquest of the whole world, will not suffer a bruised and bent reed, ready of itself to snap asunder, will not suffer one such to be broken? In a revolution that is to affect the destinies of so many millions to all eternity, is it possible that he will be tenderly solicitous for the meanest and weakest individual of his host? It is possible, it is true. He has but to let it alone, and it will break; but he will not let it alone. How then? Will he stay the march of the whole army out of consideration for a poor, frail, tempted creature? Will he forget the interests of the whole body in his strange concern for such a one? It is not necessary that he should do so. Were his wisdom and power a little less than infinite, this might be necessary. But the word infinite implies that he can at once make all things work together for the good of each, and for the good of all.
" He is all that you say," remarks some one; "but he is the Captain of our salvation, and must be obeyed. He is our Master, and he giveth to each of us a work. No one can ask that it should be otherwise. But I have a nature so detestable, so undone, so repugnant to everything "good, that with ever so good a will to his service, the least commandment crushes me, the slightest task convulses me."
The least command crushes you? What is the greatest command? It is that you should love him with all your strength - not more than your strength - not more than your powers. His burden is adapted to your force. He asks from a sapling the strength of a sapling; from a bruised reed the strength of a bruised reed. " Say that I have no strength at all." That is best. Ask of him, and he will give thee.
He will give thee first sympathy. He will show his pierced hands and feet, tell of his sweat in the garden, and relate how he was once himself bruised for your iniquities. He will give you encouragement by showing you plants of righteousness flourishing in the courts of his God, who once were bruised reeds. - Peter, for instance, of whom Satan made sure once on a time. He will give you a shield of faith - will succor you in the time of temptation - will be your strength.
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