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This book may find one who must thread the ravine at its darkest. There are wrongs done to innocence that scorch the mind. The indignation of the Lord waits upon the wrongdoer. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If our Scripture showed no righteous Judge who has eyes like unto a flame of fire, the revelation of Love incarnate would be a shimmering dream. But this does not help the tortured in the hour of torture: “All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me. As with a sword in my bones mine enemies reproach me, while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?”
And yet there is a lifting up: “Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.”
“O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” Thou shalt be called “My delight is in her”: thou shalt be called “My Pleasure.”
Do not push the words away as too beautiful for you, you who have been trusted so. “Tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised”—but though the Lord omnipotent walks so near thy prison, thou shalt be left in prison—“and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” That is the word for you. The Father trusts His broken child to trust: “If thou sink to dishonor, soar thou to love the honor of thy Beloved, who is sufficient to honor all that love Him. If thou be deceived and betrayed, rise thou in love even to the faithfulness of thy Beloved, by whom thou shalt be neither deceived nor betrayed. If thou sink through fear, soar thou through love till thou be safe with thy Beloved.”{2}
It is to the trustful lover the Beloved says, “Fret not thyself because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.” Such words breathe so pure an air that only the faith that is born of love can live there. This that has come to pass could not have been had it not been allowed. Then Love allowed it. But why? We do not know. We cannot understand. “Wherein lies thy faith, O lover?” “My faith lies in this, that I believe things to be true that I understand not concerning my Beloved.”
There is blessing prepared for the unoffended, and light no clouds of earth can smother, beyond the mist of the ravine. And in the end they shall walk up that pathway of light with their Beloved. “They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”