Daily Devotionals

Devotional: July 25th

“And when the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren.”

There is a law of compensation in life. According to that law, people who are deficient in one respect are given some counterbalancing benefit in another. The law prevents anyone from having everything. What one person lacks in beauty, she may make up for in practical wisdom. A man who is not well-coordinated in athletics may have a better disposition than if he were. Poets are not always practical, and artists are not always good managers of their finances.

When God saw that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, He caused Leah to be more prolific. Years later the law of compensation worked in the same way with Hannah and Peninnah. Elkanah loved Hannah more than Peninnah, but Peninnah had children and Hannah did not.

Though Fanny Crosby did not have the gift of sight, she had the gift of song to a superlative degree. Her hymns are one of the Church’s great legacies. Alexander Crudens suffered from severe depression but he had the strength to produce the concordance that bears his name.

Here is a humble Christian who cannot preach for sour apples; he has no public gift at all. But he is a mechanical genius, and thankfully can keep the preacher’s car in operating condition. The preacher is hopeless in mechanics. When anything goes wrong with his car, all he can do is raise the hood, put his head under it and pray.

If someone objects that the law of compensation does not work perfectly in this life, we would have to agree. There are inequalities and injustices. But this life is not all! The last chapter has not been written. When God pulls back the curtain and lets us see the world beyond, we realize that the scores are evened and the tables turned. We hear Abraham, for example, say to the rich man, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented” (Lu. 16:25).

In the meantime, it’s good for us to take a balanced view of life. Instead of concentrating on our deficiencies, we should remember that God has given us some qualities and abilities that others who seem to be more favored do not have. This will save us from feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy and envy.

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