October 3 Daily Devotional

Our Travelling Companion

I cannot imagine a better, more cheering or a more comforting statement with which to face all the uncertainties and hazards of our life in this world of time than that contained in Matthew 7 verses 7–11. It is one of those great comprehensive and gracious promises which are to be found only in the Bible ... this is the promise that comes to us: ‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’.. . There is no doubt about it, it is certain; it is an absolute promise .. . made by the Son of God Himself, speaking with all the fullness and authority of His Father.

The Bible teaches us everywhere that that is the one thing that matters in life ... it emphasizes that what really matters in life is not so much the various things that come to meet us ... as our readiness to meet them. The whole of the Biblical teaching with regard to life is ... summed up in that one man Abraham, of whom we are told, ‘he went out, not knowing whither he went’. But he was nevertheless perfectly happy, at peace and at rest. He was not afraid. Why? An old Puritan who lived three hundred years ago answers that question for us: ‘Abraham went out, not knowing whither he went; but he did know with whom he went.’ That is the thing that matters.... He was not alone, there was One with him who had told him that he would never leave him, nor forsake him; and though he was uncertain as to the events that were coming to meet him, and the problems which would arise, he was perfectly happy because he knew his Travelling Companion.... Our Lord does not promise to change life for us; He does not promise to remove difficulties and trials and problems and tribulations; He does not say that He is going to cut out all the thorns and leave the roses with their wonderful perfume. No; He faces life realistically, and tells us that these are things ... which are bound to come. But He assures us that we can so know Him that, whatever happens, we need never be frightened, we need never be alarmed.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 195–6