Yesterday’s Morning Manna was about the fact that, for the Christian, the best is yet to come. Since there are many “good” people with bad problems, many suffering saints, this is a fact that we need to keep continually before us. Oh, I know there are those who say we have our head in the clouds, and that we are so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. But, the real problem is that we are often so earthly minded that we are of no heavenly good. It is of great importance that we reflect on what lies ahead for God’s people. One day our work will be done and our battles all over –there will no more anguish. All will be perfect peace. Horatius Bonar put it like this:

Our bodies shared the ruin into which sin brought our race. Mortality and corruption took possession of them. They became subject to pain, and weariness, and disease—in every organ and limb. The one drop of poison coming from Adam’s sin has spread itself out and pervaded every part of us. Our flesh, from the cradle to the tomb, is feeble, broken, ready to faint—the cause and the inlet of a thousand sorrows.

All this shall yet be reversed. Former things shall pass away. This head shall ache no more; these hands and feet shall be weary no more; this flesh shall throb with anguish no more. ‘God Himself shall wipe away all tears from these eyes; and there shall be no more death; neither, sorrow, nor crying, for the former things are passed away.’ ‘He will take these vile bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like His own!’

He who once hung upon the cross, but now sits upon the throne, says, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ ‘This corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality, and death be swallowed in victory!

...we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.–1 John 3:2

For the Christian the best is always yet to come! I’ve been repeating those words for nearly half a century, and I don’t plan to stop. That blessed truth has kept me going through many difficult days when I felt like quitting. I don’t know what you are going through, nor your frame of mind, but it’s going to get better. If the outlook seems gloomy, try the up-look — it is glorious! Horatius Bonar  spoke of this many years ago when he wrote these encouraging words:

The sin, and the darkness, and the misery, and the unbelief, and the distance from God—all these shall come to a final end. In their place shall come holiness, and love, and light, and joy, and everlasting nearness—unchanging and unending fellowship with that Jehovah in whom is life eternal.

Every fragment of evil shall be expelled from our souls—and we shall then know what perfection is—perfection according to the mind and after the image of God—perfection without a flaw, or taint, or shadow—perfection without the possibility of reversal or diminishing.

We shall be holy as God is holy; we shall be perfect as He is perfect; we shall be children of the light and of the day in the fullest sense—no trace of remaining sin in any part of us. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

What would it take to make you happy? To put it another way, what would have to happen to make you a truly contented, satisfied, fulfilled person? Try this–make a list of the five things that are the most disconcerting things in your life. Would you be a truly happy/contented person if all those things were as you wish they were? Probably not! If you can’t be a joyful Christian with things as they are, you wouldn’t be if they were as you wish.

I recently read an article by Coach Joe Gibbs that gives us food for thought in this regards. Read what he says carefully and mediate on it deeply and it just might make a world of difference in your life:

Are you happy where you are? Happy with your job and your prospects for growth? Happy with your home life, whether married or single? Happy with the house you live in? Happy with the car you drive? Happy with much of anything right now in terms of where you’d like to be?

When God allowed a Babylonian king to swoop into Israel and cart the Hebrews off into exile, you can be sure they weren’t very happy. They’d lost their homes, lost their security, lost their ties to everything they owned. But as a way of further growing their character and painting their future with promise, God gave his people these instructions: Build houses there. Start a family there. Work for the good of your neighbors there. Make the most of this unwanted season by bearing fruit in an unhappy place.

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you” God told them, “thoughts of peace, and not evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:11). But don’t expect these promising days just to kick in as payback because you’ve been suffering for a while. Don’t expect to build much on the backs of your constant complaining. Commit to doing something special even in the midst of your current situation. And you’ll find that those “plans” for a “hope and a future” required the relationships you built, the work you invested, and the contentment you chose in the present. Dig in to dig out.

Gibbs then suggested that we pray this prayer: Lord, you know I’m not very happy right now. But I’m going to take your advice and let you grow me here. Thank you for not letting me waste my experiences—even these experiences.

Just now clouds are plentiful enough, but we are not afraid that the world will be destroyed by a deluge. We see the rainbow often enough to pre- vent our having any such fears. The covenant which the LORD made with Noah stands fast, and we have no doubts about it. Why, then, should we think that the clouds of’ trouble, which now darken our sky, will end in our destruction? Let us dismiss such groundless and dishonoring fears.

Faith always sees the bow of covenant promise whenever sense sees the cloud of affliction. God has a bow with which He might shoot out His arrows of destruction. But see, it is turned upward! It is a bow without an arrow or a string; it is a bow hung out for show, no longer used for war. It is a bow of many colors, expressing joy and delight, and not a bow blood-red with slaughter or black with anger. Let us be of good courage. Never does God so darken our sky as to leave His covenant without a witness, and even if He did, we would trust Him since He cannot change or lie or in any other way fail to keep His covenant of peace. Until the waters go over the earth again, we shall have no reason for doubting our God.

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty…. Zephaniah 3:17

What a mighty God we have to deal with! And what would suit our case, but a mighty God? Have we not mighty sins? Have we not mighty trials? Have we not mighty temptations? Have we not mighty foes and mighty fears? And who is to deliver us from all this mighty host except the mighty God? It is not a little God (if I may use the expression) that will do for God’s people. They need a mighty God because they are in circumstances where none but a mighty God can intervene in their behalf.

Why, if you did not know feelingly and experimentally your mighty sins, your mighty trials, your mighty temptations, and your mighty fears, you would not need a mighty God. This sense of our weakness and his power, of our misery and his mercy, of our ruin and his recovery, of the aboundings of our sin and the super-aboundings of his grace–a feeling sense, I say, of these opposite yet harmonious things brings us to have personal, experimental dealings with God; and it is in these personal dealings with God that the life of all religion consists.

O what a poor, dead, useless religion is that in which there are no personal dealings with God–no calling upon his holy name out of a sincere heart; no seeking of his face, or imploring of his favor; no lying at his feet and begging of him to appear; no pitiable, lamentable case for him to have compassion upon; no wounds or sores for him to heal, no leprosy to cleanse, no enemies to put to the rout, no fears to dispel, and, I may almost say, no soul to save!

And yet such is the religion of thousands. They draw near to God with their lips, but their hearts are far from him, and while they outwardly say, “Lord, Lord,” they inwardly say, “This man shall not have dominion over us.” If you differ from them, and need a God near at hand and not afar off, a mighty God in the very midst of your soul, of your thoughts, desires, and affections, you may well bless him for the grace which has made you to differ, and thankfully bow your neck to sufferings and trials, as means in his hand to bring you and him together.(Daily Portions)