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| PRESS ONWARD After the death of the Lord's servant Moses, the Lord spoke to Moses' helper Joshua, son of Nun. He said, "My servant Moses is dead. Get ready now, you and all the people of Israel cross the Jordan river into the land that I am giving them...I will be with you as I was with Moses...I will never abandon you (Joshua 1:1-2, 5). Sorrow came to you...and emptied your home. Your first impulse now is to give up, and sit down in despair amid the wrecks of your hopes. But you dare not do it. You are in the line of battle, and the crisis is at hand. To falter a moment would be to imperil some holy interest. Other lives would be harmed by your pausing, holy interests would suffer, should your hand be folded. A distinguished general related this pathetic incident of his own experience in time of war. The general's son was a lieutenant of battery. An assault was in progress. The father was leading his division in a charge; as he pressed on in the field, suddenly his eye was caught by the sight of a dead battery-officer lying just before him. One glance showed him it was his own son. His fatherly impulse was to stop beside the loved one and give vent to the grief, but the duty of the moment demanded that he should press on in the charge. So, quickly snatching one hot kiss from the dead lips, he hastened away, leading his command in the assault. Weeping inconsolably beside a grave can never give back love's banished treasure ...Sorrow makes deep scars; it writes its record ineffaceably on the heart which suffers. We really never get over our great griefs; we are never altogether the same after we have passed through them as we were before. Yet there is a humanizing and fertilizing influence in sorrow which has been rightly accepted and cheerfully borne. Indeed, they are poor who have never suffered, and have none of sorrow's marks upon them. The joy set before us should shine our griefs as the sun shines through the clouds, glorifying them. God has so ordered, that in pressing on in duty we shall find the truest, richest comfort for ourselves. Sitting down to brood over our sorrows, the darkness deepens about us and creeps into our heart, and our strength changes to weakness. But if we turn away from the gloom, and take up the tasks and duties to which God calls us, the light will come again, and we shall grow stronger. ___________________________________________________________ Press onward, for as God was with Moses, He will also be with you...He will never abandon you. ___________________________________________ Author: J.R. Miller rom the book Streams in the Desert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman |