Hedged In

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 13, 1905

GEORGE MULLER says, “God’s way leads always into trial so far as sight and sense are concerned. Nature always will be tried in God’s ways.” Again he tells us, “We love the easy days, the pleasant days, but trials are what faith feeds upon.” So we see the divine necessity of our close places. They are a needful discipline for the development of a faith that can walk before the unseen God in steadfast confidence and obedience, no matter what that may involve. But we naturally think quite the opposite, and expect an unobstructed path in the way of God’s leading. We forget that when the Master constrained the disciples to get into the boat and go across the lake after the feeding of the five thousand, he led them right into the teeth of a tempest. “It was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them,” is the first graphic stroke of the picture. Then they are toiling in mid-sea, making no headway, the winds contrary unto them, until the fourth watch of the night—and still Jesus has not come. They could not see him, but he saw them, and let the trial of baffling winds and waves continue until flesh and heart were ready to fail. Then he came walking over that storm-tossed sea, giving relief, and revealing his presence. They never had had anything quite like that, and out of it there came a new and never-to-be-forgotten manifestation of Christ’s power and love.

For Israel in the wilderness every foot of the way was divinely chosen, but their journey was one series of testings, with here and there a respite, as at Elim. Their provings were never fancied difficulties. It was the continued story of man’s extremity and God’s opportunity. We read it, and say to ourselves, O, if they had but trusted in the dark every time and never murmured, what a grand record they would have made! How faith would have grown with each added proving, until at Kadesh-barnea they would boldly have crossed over to take walled cities, overcome giants, and possess the land!

Hedged in at Pi-hahiroth and pursued, there really was no way. They had yet to learn that God can make a way where there is none, and that with him there are no providential impossibilities. Their straits were seldom, if ever, precisely duplicated. There was always with them, as there is with us, some new feature, so that they could say, in memory of past deliverances, “But this is different;” Well would it have been for them, and well would it be for us, to remember our Father can not be surprised by circumstances. He is as equal to the altered conditions as to the previous trial.

If you walk in providential darkness, stand still, as George Muller again would say, and wait to see what God is doing for you behind the clouds. He has not forsaken them that seek him. Ps. 9:10. If you have come to Marah, and the waters are so bitter that you can not drink, don’t question his goodness, but trust; and Marah, with its sweetened waters, will be a memorable spot in your pilgrimage.

“Say not, my soul, From whence Can God relieve my care? Remember that Omnipotence Hath servants everywhere. His methods are sublime, His heart profoundly kind. God never is before his time, And never is behind.” —Esther Tuttle Pritchard, in The American Friend.