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(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)
"I have seen his ways, and will heal him!" Isaiah 57:18
I am glad that He sees my ways, before He heals me. It is a great satisfaction to feel that there is One Who comprehends perfectly the worst of my nature and my conduct. I am concealed to a certain extent even from my nearest human friends. The disclosure would be too terrible--it would force the most forbearing and the most forgiving to flee from me in horror!
Yet to my heavenly Father, everything is as clear as the sunlight:
my self-seeking,
my pride,
my envy,
my loathsome sins!
He understands . . .
my sevenfold corruption,
my festering leprosy,
my filthiness, and
my idols!
He reads me through and through. No black veil curtains any corner of my being from His all-seeing eye. Yet He pardons me of all my evil--and clasps me to Himself!
He meets the evil King Manasseh, who has made the streets of Jerusalem run red with innocent blood--and He receives Him to His household and His heart.
He draws the sinful woman to the Savior's feet in penitential tears, and the Savior bids her go in peace.
He has room and welcome for me, although my transgressions, ten thousand times ten thousand, are before His all-seeing eye! There is no stain that tarnishes His justice when He so wonderfully forgives; for He has laid my iniquities and all their doom on the Son of His love! I go free with the consent of His holiness, as well as of His grace.
His omniscience is penetrating and all-inclusive, missing none of my shortcomings and none of my sins--yet His compassions are infinite!
Therefore I will flee to my one Refuge! Nowhere else am I safe from condemnation. Nowhere else am I at home.
(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)
"I have seen his ways, and will heal him!" Isaiah 57:18
I am glad that He sees my ways, before He heals me. It is a great satisfaction to feel that there is One Who comprehends perfectly the worst of my nature and my conduct. I am concealed to a certain extent even from my nearest human friends. The disclosure would be too terrible--it would force the most forbearing and the most forgiving to flee from me in horror!
Yet to my heavenly Father, everything is as clear as the sunlight:
my self-seeking,
my pride,
my envy,
my loathsome sins!
He understands . . .
my sevenfold corruption,
my festering leprosy,
my filthiness, and
my idols!
He reads me through and through. No black veil curtains any corner of my being from His all-seeing eye. Yet He pardons me of all my evil--and clasps me to Himself!
He meets the evil King Manasseh, who has made the streets of Jerusalem run red with innocent blood--and He receives Him to His household and His heart.
He draws the sinful woman to the Savior's feet in penitential tears, and the Savior bids her go in peace.
He has room and welcome for me, although my transgressions, ten thousand times ten thousand, are before His all-seeing eye! There is no stain that tarnishes His justice when He so wonderfully forgives; for He has laid my iniquities and all their doom on the Son of His love! I go free with the consent of His holiness, as well as of His grace.
His omniscience is penetrating and all-inclusive, missing none of my shortcomings and none of my sins--yet His compassions are infinite!
Therefore I will flee to my one Refuge! Nowhere else am I safe from condemnation. Nowhere else am I at home.
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