February 29

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1.

It is one of the most blessed truths of the covenant of grace, that the God of the covenant is a very present help in every time of trouble. Loving His people as He does, dwelling in them by His Spirit, their people and circumstances continually before Him in the person and the intercession of His dear Son, how can He possibly lose sight of them for a single moment? They may, and they often do, lose sight of Him. They, do not, alas! set the Lord always before their face. They do not train and discipline themselves to see Him in every event, circumstance, and incident of life. They are not clear-sighted to recognize, nor prompt to acknowledge, Him in every providence that darkens or lightens upon their way. Were they but right-minded, they, would exclaim of every good and of every evil as it came, "The Lord is in this!" But they are never for an instant out of His heart, out of His thoughts, out of His hands, or out of His eye.

How near to them, too, is the Holy Spirit! Dwelling in and overshadowing them, He is at their side to guide, to uphold, and to cheer; bringing to their memory a precious promise, or writing upon their heart an animating truth, or opening before their eye some endearing glimpse of Jesus, just at the moment it was needed. What a happy, what a favored people are the Lord's! "Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Happy is that people that is in such a case: yes, happy is that people whose God is the Lord."