January 6 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"In the world you will have tribulation" (John 16:33).

Devotional

What if you could briefly draw aside the thin veil that separates you from the glorified saints and discover the path along which the covenant God conducted them to their present enjoyments? How few exceptions—if any—would you find to that declaration of the LORD—"I have tried you in the furnace of affliction" (Isa. 48:10). All would tell of some peculiar cross; some trial that followed them every step of their journey; which made the path they trod truly "a valley of tears," and which they only threw off when the spirit, divested of its robe of flesh, fled to where sorrow and sighing are forever done away.

God's people are a sorrowful people. The first step you take in the divine life is connected with tears of godly sorrow. And as you travel on, sorrow and tears trace your steps. You sorrow over the body of sin which you are compelled to carry with you. You sorrow over your perpetual proneness to wander, to backslide, to live below your high and holy calling. You mourn that you mourn so little; you weep that you weep so little—that over so much indwelling sin, over so many and such great lapses, you are still so seldom found mourning in the posture of one low in the dust before God.

In connection with this, there is also the sorrow which results from the needed discipline which the correcting hand of the Father who loves you almost daily employs. For, in what light are all your afflictions to be viewed, but as so many correctives, so much discipline employed by your covenant God, in order to make you "share his holiness" (Heb. 12:10)? Viewed in any other light, God is dishonored, the Spirit is grieved, and you the believer are robbed of the great spiritual blessing for which the trial was sent.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to thy God to order and provide;
in ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
to guide the future as he has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
and all is darkened in the vale of tears,
then shalt thou better know his love, his heart,
who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
from his own fullness all he takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast'ning on
when we shall be for ever with the Lord,
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

(Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697; tr. by Jane Borthwick, 1855)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.