Day 6: High and awesome — full of eyes
This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went. Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around…Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man (Ezekiel 1:16-18, 26).
There is the greatest wisdom in the workings of Providence. You were recently in great distress, and you could not see why it was so with you. The next time you are in distress, you must say, “The wheels of Providence are full of eyes: I have but two eyes; but God’s wheels are full of eyes.
God can see everything; I can only see one thing at a time. I see it looks good for me now; I do not know what it will be to-morrow. I see what the plant is now; I do not know what it will be to-morrow. I know not, what kind of flower that herb will yield.
This affliction is a cassava root, full of poison, and would soon destroy me; but God can put that in the oven, so that all the poison shall evaporate, and it shall become food for me to live upon. This trouble of mine seems to me to be destructive; but God can take all the destroying power out of it, and so it shall be made into food for my soul.”
Now, thou tried one, groaning down in the valley, up with shine heart; away with thy tears; put thy hand on thy breast; and make thy heart stop its hard beating. Thou poor soul, dash the cup of misery from thine hand; thou art not condemned; thou art a pardoned Christian.
Remember that God hath said, “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.” Oh, how I would like to make your hearts like flint and steel against trouble; We cannot bear the winds of trouble; we are soon cast down and broken-hearted.
When we are in prosperity, we are giants; we think we can do like Samson did, that we can take hold of the two pillars of trouble and distress, and pull them down. But once tell us that the Philistines are upon us, and we have no power.
[But in] trouble... or disease....or pestilence:
“He that hath made his refuge God
Shall find a most secure abode,
Shall walk all day beneath his shade,
And there at night shall rest his head.”
Let this be thy shield to keep off the thrusts of distress, and this be thy high rock against all the winds of sorrow. Amen.
~ C. H. Spurgeon ~ God's Providence ~ October 15, 1908
